Spring!!

My neighbor cut my front yard and so I stocked the beer fence.

While Rome Burns

I spent a good portion of the 1990s justifying my work as an artist, especially as a painter, to myself. It was a moral dilemma; a question of validity and purpose. How can I indulge something with such intangible meaning and value? Once I finally acknowledged the value of making art, it became one of the few absolutes in my life. Afterward, I rarely questioned the value/virtue in making paintings, even as cultural dictates changed. Human existence matters and so making art matters.

The continuation of human existence is quickly becoming less of a given. The most recent climate measurements and projections are dire beyond belief. And the worst-case scenarios are looking less and less speculative.

Making art is once again a dilemma. A Dr. Zhivago-like engagement in painting seems ridiculous in the face of world-wide environmental calamity. I won't make environmental art, because that's rarely an effective vehicle for change. And while making non-purposed art is no longer a personal moral uncertainty, it's impossible to do so without making some acknowledgment of broader concerns. All I really know is to acknowledge the situation.

While Rome Burns - I think I've used this post title before. I know it's in a notebook somewhere. I may begin adding an “acknowledgment” of these broader concerns to my paintings - a narrative or emblematic aside that sidecars the primary subject. Artist Randy Wyatt had his “Yellow Man” that appeared in most of his paintings. I want to make a Lane Marker scene, with a sustainable garden silhouette in the distance. Or a Shelter House image with a distant indication of a burnt forest. How would these quietly suggested addenda read in the painting? And in the broader sense? Can I do it without pandering, and does that even matter? It's an acknowledgement that does not solve anything. Again, it's all I really know to do.

New Life in Old Haunts

The original Utrillo's site is going through another (very well-prepped paint) transformation. Kym Tongate and Garry Toney are opening Infamous Studio Tattoo, their second tattoo shop, in the 2630 East 10th Street location. (Their other site is in Wannamaker). This is the little building that could, which is just west of Rural. They will also be showing art, so stay tuned. 

And yes, I do have some images of the place as the 1990s-era Utrillo's.

 Above window display features hand-cut peg board screens 

with street scene photos montaged on the ends.

Randy Wyatt's show, with a huge reverse-on-plexiglass painting in the window.

Post-tattoo and/or piercing suggestion: Soup of the day at Pogue's Run, just east on 10th. They make excellent soup that is always ruled by the ingredients, never over-seasoned.

Rocktown would like to thanks its new sponsor,Near Eastside Chamber of Commerce....just kidding, no such entity.

Latest Work

I am currently exhibiting a new group of paintings in my gallery space, Dewclaw. The show, "Kinkade Meets Turner Paints Sci-fi With Fanbrush" began as a stylistic riff of sorts. I very soon let go of that, and continued on a rather simple, fast, poetic path. So much of my work is now serial in theme or in formal approach. It was great to go back to some good ole free-meandering. That said, the end results have followed a pseudo monster-based theme, which is fine.

 

 "Leviathan", 8" x 8", oil on wood, 2012

 "Genie", 8" x 11.5", oil on wood, 2012

 "Ogre", 8" x 8", oil on wood, 2012

This is such a great way to work, and one taps into all sorts of imagery and subtle expressions which would never arise from a more deliberate or planned process. I think I need to keep this in the game-plan, a running line of non-linear works.

 

Don't stop what you're doing....

Rocktown's taking a little break, but will be back soon. In the meantime, I need a place to keep some links.

http://elisabethcondon.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-most-generous-landscape-olive-ayhens.html?spref=fb

http://hyperallergic.com/58526/prolegomenon-to-an-artist-who-at-seventy-two-is-having-her-first-solo-show-in-a-new-york-gallery/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/trollhunter/

Craft Plaques Statement

I was referring to the painted shaped plaques when I wrote this. I'm still not sure yet, how the 3-d materials-based plaques relate.

"I try to create visual images that are different from anything I already know or imagine. I use painting as a process by which to find this new imagery, and set up various frameworks for guidance. The frameworks themselves are always evolving, and they reveal broader areas of interest. My intended focus may be about materials and formal paint handling, or personal experiences, both cognizant and sub-conscious. Very often I create work around an iconic figure or structure of unknown purpose or meaning.

I began using shaped wooden plaques because they offer an interesting compositional challenge, and because they hint of an incongruous craft genre. They serve to foil any conventional aesthetic intentions I may have. I'm deliberately staging an awkward proposal, so that I am forced to find new solutions and new imagery.
 
These shaped also panels set up a paradox, for they are neither 3-d sculpture nor a picture plane rectangle. These shapes taunt the illusionist world that I treasure, forcing me to make conscious choices about their existence in reality. I must choose to place a representational image on/in these 2-d planes that are also objects. Such images no longer materialize with ease. The outcomes are inevitably negotiated compromises, where painted illusion and personal subject matter and 3-d objects struggle to co-exist in the same perceived reality."
 
-Carla Knopp 3-18-12

Studio Happenings

 I plan on moving the 3-d craft plaques to Dewclaw, and using that as a second studio in July and August.

 Above and below are the recently cut shaped panels, gesso primed and then base painted with arbitrarily suggestive color washes and textures. A few are full into painting mode - acrylic painting mode. There are benefits to doing these in acrylic, sometimes just as a start, and even all the way to completion. Things dry and tend to become permanent to the ongoing process/image, much more readily than with oil. This can help me stay within certain parameters, and keep things cohesive in a good way. The downside is that I don't get quite so engaged as I do when using oil. I tend to fret over things drying, both on the painting surface and the palette.

I have also been painting some non-series works, and getting very disparate imagery. I'll post those once they make some sort of sense.