Wide Eyes Studio

Four Boxes of Dreams

2011-03-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

I already know what is inside the first box. The other three have dreams that are yet unknown. On White Rabbit Day, April 1, I'll open up the next.

The first box had some dark, fevered dreams, of not being able to see, and of not being able to feel.

I fumbled through two printing sessions, letting out impulsive squirts of unfinished ideas. Each gesture was unguided by intention. I could say that I was engaging in improvisation in order to access some previously unfound ideas or images. But, really I have just been all dark inside.

I expect some light to shine in when this quarter is over. I really do.

December at Mina Dresden Gallery

2010-12-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

Two of my Monotypes and three of the Atmosphere Oils will be part of the December Womens exhibition The Feminine Mystique at Mina Dresden Gallery (312 Valencia at 14th Street in The Mission).

The exibition showcases several Bay Area Women artists. Part of the proceeds go to two worthy charities: Music in Schools Today and Hamilton Family Center.

The Opening Reception is next Thursday, December 9, From 6 pm to 8 pm. The Mina Dresden Gallery is also participating in the Valencia Street Holiday Sale on Friday, December 10, from 5 pm to 10 pm.

The exhibit will be up till January 9, 2011.

Details at minadresden.com.

Hot Off The Press

2010-10-31T08:32:00.000-07:00

You're Not Here

I had a spur-of-the-moment opportunity to print at Katie Gilmartin's Chrysalis Studio this week. I went with no plans or sketches and had a great time making some new monotypes.

It turned out that I made four prints of figures. Two are ritual dancers which were a continuation of ideas in some prints I made late last year. One, my favorite, is in the Dangerous Room series, which I have yet to fully develop. It is someone waiting in a dark apartment, called "You're not Here" . The fourth is a warmup, maybe a female spirit.

I will be showing these fresh new prints at the annual Chrysalis Studio Show at SOMARTS on Thursday, November 18, from 7 to 9 pm. There will be food and drink, as well as printing demonstrations. SOMARTS is at 934 Brannan Street, at 8th, in San Francisco. All are invited.

Spirit Dancer

Ritual

Thank you

2010-10-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Thank you to everyone who helped, visited, bought art, and sent me best wishes for my Open Studio this year.

Thank you especially to Carol Koffel for lending me her studio space and for all her support and inspiration!

I wish I had a photo of dust settling or something, as it feels very quiet right now as I begin to return to work.

Found some photos of the weekend:

I wore ears:

Map of the painting locations:

Completed

2010-09-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

I participate in Artspan's Open Studios every fall. This year I will be showing my work in my friend Carol Koffel's studio in Noe Valley the first weekend in October.

Earlier this year I planned my exhibit: 12 to 16 Atmosphere paintings sized 12" x 12" that I could display together and feel the interactions among them. The Atmospheres are generally seascapes or other water spaces in Northern California.

This week I completed the last work on the set of 12 Atmospheres. It's a good thing to complete something you planned. Also, I love the work.

Below are some of the pieces that will be in the show.
2471 Atmosphere

2471 Atmosphere

2413 Atmosphere

2425 Atmosphere

Point Reyes

2010-09-03T06:49:00.000-07:00

I get to go up to Pt. Reyes again next weekend. Here's a quick post of a sweet Pt. Reyes painting I just finished this week.

Milton Avery

2010-09-02T15:38:00.001-07:00

Some Tuesdays I paint with friends in the evening. This is very wonderful. I have begun to do paintings outside my normal themes and series at the Tuesday evening events. The past few weeks I took a postcard (above) of a Milton Avery painting as a starting point for a kind of painting I have never done. Large fields of color and a figure.

For my source material I used old drawings, from several years ago, made at the Drawing Marathon. Interesting juxtapositions happen when a dozen models are posing all day and changing every couple of minutes.

Below are the two paintings I am working on in this way.

This one is going to be the first in a series of duos called Reflection. It is nearly done.

The Girl in the Green Dress is an underpainting, but very interesting as it is.

Dream

2010-09-02T15:33:00.000-07:00

I paint from memory. Sometimes that provokes me. Where did the image come from? When I am working on my series or themes, I am swimming in familiar waters and new images make sense. They fit in.

At the end of some painting days there is paint left on the palette. I often use it as underpainting for the next piece in the series. Last week, I used these leftover paints to work without a conscious plan. But, very soon, it became apparent that I was painting something I had seen, something I recognize. I feel very strongly that this was dreamed a couple of months ago when I was up in Gualala. Magic light at night out on Gualala point. And something else.

Covered

2010-08-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

This year one of my monotypes will be on the Artspan Open Studios Guide. Well, a slice of it. You can see more about Artspan Cover Artists here.

Here is the cover art:

My piece is the little sliver from the bottom left. Here is the whole piece (1993 Explorers from Another World):

It is part of a pair of images and here is the other (1994 Explorers from Another World):

They are both being shown, along with the other cover art, at the new Dick Blick store at 979 Market Street, near Sixth Street, in San Francisco, from August 19 through November 5. There will be an opening party this Thursday, August 19, evening, 5-8 pm.

President Roosevelt

2010-08-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

I just ran into a transcript of a conversation I had with my landlord 1983.

Mose was my landlord from 1976 to 1985. He owned three houses in a row on 39th street near Grove in Oakland. It was called Grove Street then, but now it's Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

I learned a lot from Mose, especially about American History. He told me that when he bought the houses there on 39th street in the 1950s that was the farthest north a black family could buy a house. There were laws restricting home ownership by race then. He said 39th street was the last and best block he could buy a house on, so that's where he bought; wanting the best for his family.

He was 62 in 1983. We were chatting while he was gardening. Here's what he told me:

When I got back from the war my wife was pregnant by another guy. But what could I do? I was off fighting the war and there was nothing I could do about it, so I couldn't get mad about it. I mean, when I got that letter from President Roosevelt I was milking cows, two dollars a day, sun up to sun down.

You got a letter from President Roosevelt?

Yeah, I got a letter from Roosevelt asking me to help out with the war.

You were drafted, you mean?

President Roosevelt sent me this letter and, well, I went. I had been milking cows, two dollars a day, working from sun up to sun down. That was a good job. My father worked there, too, but he didn't make that much. I milked the cows, from sun up to sun down, every day, seven days. I'd been milkin' them cows so damn long I decided to go fight the war. When I got back my wife was pregnant by this other guy, you see, but how could I be mad when I wasn't even there?

Admit what you are doing

2010-08-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was not a good painting day. But that's not really a problem, since the past couple of months have been dreamy, very prolific, in the studio. That's why this post doesn't have any new paintings in it.

Admit what you are doing. That's what's been really productive this week. I got past blocks in two different areas by following this advice. Yesterday was the mundane but very satisfying work in the studio, changing the contents of the shelves near my easel to contain the painting tools.

Today, better, was admitting that the Night Cafe paintings had a palette of their own and selecting the pieces with that palette to be in the group. I had thought I should have some guys with, say maybe orange or green, to liven up the grouping. And that was really getting me down, as I have them all arranged on the mantle in my livingroom to dry. As soon as I removed the guys with gold, green and brown, a group began to form. And, then, synergy brought them together with Curtis, a sculpture from years ago of a really tough but sensitive guy and that felt good.

Below, Night Cafe with Curtis.

Inspired by

2010-07-24T08:57:00.001-07:00

Nyarlathotep
This week, I read this story by H. P. Lovecraft and repeatedly viewed the short film of "Nyarlathotep" by Christian Matzke (image above). The tale of a swarthy ancient, come out of Egypt to show us wondrous things, seems to be infusing my sensation of everyday life.

And especially of the concerts I have been attending at The Lab in the Mission as part of SoundWave's Green Sound Festival.

Here I saw alchemical performers who seemed somehow kin to Nyarlathotep.

Barn Owl, the duo of silent young men, bending sound that loosed some inner voice in each of us. "Into the lands of civilization came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister ..."

Jim Haynes constructed a symphony from whispering chemical reactions within laboratory glassware projected on a screen above him. "...always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger."

Theresa Wong sat playing her cello and belting out sounds with her perfect voice, but, through some strange instrumentation of her microphone, what we heard were wholly unhuman vocalizations that haunted and inspired me. "And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare."

"And I heard it hinted abroad that those who knew Nyarlathotep looked on sights which others knew not."

Barn Owl

Jim Haynes

green sound

Trees

2010-07-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

Trees have been creeping into my Atmosphere paintings. They are also creeping me out. I know where they came from. We went up the Mendocino Coast a few weeks ago and saw Trees Everywhere, even down to the sea. It's not completely unreasonable, as I named my workbook for this year "Light in the Forest." Still, part of me wants to go back to Point Reyes really soon to get the trees out of my eyes and get back to the Atmosphere paintings I am most comfortable with. But is comfort what I really need?

p.s. I post here the view from my room in Mendocino, as evidence of the congestion of trees all around.

p.p.s, September 2, 2010:
Painting Trees (top image), still not done.

Painting Today

2010-07-15T15:39:00.001-07:00

It was a very difficult painting day today. I had to get very tough with myself. Also had to deal with disappointment. The Night Cafe guys that have been showing up here are very challenging and I keep expecting a lot better results than I am getting. Reminder: process.

Atmosphere

2010-07-15T08:38:00.000-07:00

My plan is to show a grid of 5 x 5 of the 12" square Atmosphere paintings this fall at Artspan Open Studios. Here are two new Atmosphere paintings.

New Paintings

2010-07-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Painting all day on a Thursday. Two new guys.

Point Reyes

2010-07-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

We have been up at Point Reyes for a few days. We found the kind of inner quiet we needed while walking out on the point and hanging out in the yurt.

Many of my projects are inspired by Point Reyes, the Atmosphere series, especially. Another series I have not published or shown yet, Antennae, also takes place in Point Reyes.

Last time we went up to Point Reyes I took several very short videos of plants moving in the wind. These were all taken up near Abbott's Lagoon. A couple are posted below and more here.

New Paintings

2010-06-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Three sketches in three hours.

I spent this afternoon doodling male heads. I haven't been painting for very long, so big changes in a short period of time. Almost got interesting on the third painting. Wish painting did not get interrupted by having to make a living.

p.s. They are in the order they were painted from left to right.

Jade at SF Art Institute

2010-06-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

I have joined an exibition of my fellow ACE students work at The San Francisco Art Institute. It will be on display this week, June 7 to 11, culminating in a reception Friday, June 11 from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm. You are all welcome to view the work at the Diego Rivera Gallery on the Art Institute Campus, 800 Chestnut Street, in North Beach, and to join us for the reception Friday night.

On Sunday, David and I dropped off one of my paintings for the exhibit and wandered around the beautiful campus. There are many vantage points for looking out over the Bay and North Beach from the cool outdoor spaces. The day was both sunny and foggy, but we got sunburnt!

I hope to see you at the reception.

Gelaskins

2010-05-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

My IPhone is getting really beat looking. The wonderful candy is kind of boring now after a few months. What To Do!! I ran into a product called Gelaskins, skins for your IPhone. I realize there are lots of IPhone covers, but Gelaskins interested me because you can use your own art. So I uploaded three of my images and ordered new outfits for my phone. I'll let you know what they actually look like when I get them next week. Until then, the above images are from their website design gadget www.gelaskins.com.

p.s. I got the skins, they look great!! I used one for my phone and gave the other two to friends who really liked them. I plan to have some made up for Open Studios, so if you have any images you would like for your phone, let me know.

New Paintings

2010-05-02T10:38:00.000-07:00

On the last day of painting for my spring Art Institute class, I pulled out two 12"x12" canvases and painted freely, without a source drawing, but with images in mind. The results are below:

2413 Atmosphere

2414 Secret Rites

IPhone Painting Oil Painting

2010-04-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

I have written before about painting using the Brushes program on my IPhone. It's great - you can paint anywhere, and the paintings are full of wonderful light, as the IPhone as a medium is backlit. I like how all the colors are already available to you and you can find colors right away. Above, Missing Light, IPhone painting is on the left, oil painting on the right.

The IPhone was an easy introduction to "painting". I decided that, for my oil painting class this spring, I would use images and ideas from my IPhone paintings as sources for the paintings

I picked a set of IPhone paintings that used a very saturated, dark-colored background and built up the image using pale colors.

The outcomes are interesting, and there are a few more IPhone images I want to interepret as oil paintings.

Making Light. IPhone painting on the left, oil painting on the right.

Another Making Light painting, the same technique, no IPhone source image.

Girl Before a Mirror

2010-03-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

So here's Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror. It's almost too familiar.

In grammar school I was in a class for bright kids and they gave us various resources and tools and let us explore -- research -- stuff. We had an overhead projector and I used it to study two things by projecting their images, tracing and coloring. Those two things were Diatoms (the plankton) and Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror.

I had learned that there were a bunch of paintings called Cubist and they looked different, but all in the same way, a way I did not really understand. I picked Girl Before a Mirror to study because I really couldn't make out what it was a picture of. There was a woman's face looking out from the painting, but the rest seemed to be chaos. Tracing and coloring the image took me a couple of weeks, which is a long time for a kid. I projected the painting onto a big piece of butcher paper and traced it with a sharpie and colored it with crayons. The image slowly emerged and I began to be able to make out both of the images of the woman and even get the idea of the mirror image. That Sunday, a lot of grownups from our neighborhood were over watching sports on T. V. I was just sitting around, uninterested in the program, staring at the edge of the coffee table. Suddenly, I got it and said out loud, "Cubism shows you all the different faces of a thing all at once!" It wasn't the sort of crowd to think of such things, so my comment was ignored. But, that really didn't matter, did it?

While I was in New York recently, I stood in front of the actual painting remembering that moment. My thoughts came back up to the present with the unhappy realization that, now, in the new millennium, it is likely that many grade school children would not be allowed to study or even view this painting because it has breasts in it. This is the common horror felt by educated people of a certain age: What has happened to education!

Then something magic happened. A young woman approached me and asked me to photograph her with the painting Girl Before a Mirror. I took her picture and she thanked me. I loitered around the gallery, as one does. Then I saw two women approach Girl Before a Mirror and take each others' pictures with the painting, several times. Then again, another pair of women took each others' portraits with the painting. I stood and watched other pairs of women approach and take their pictures with Picasso's reflected Girl. Other solitary women approached and photographed it. Pairs of American, Japanese, Chinese, French, German women stood near the striped girl for their portrait, the third, prismatic image of woman, taking Picasso's reflection out into the further dimension of time. And moving that painting of a woman loving her own image past mere aesthetic appreciation or sexual objectification, and into the proud possession of these women of the twenty-first century.

Studio Reboot

2010-01-17T15:14:00.000-08:00

I am probably not the first nor the last artist to work in a basement. This week we are cleaning up from the chaos that preparation for the autumn shows left behind and improving the wiring and lighting in the space. We got to a point today where being in the space made my heart feel pretty good.

I love the non sequitur of workspaces in mid-use.

The loneliness of the space not ready

Wild beauty of the backyard

Over

2009-12-26T14:51:00.000-08:00

It's over, 2009.

I am only thinking about what's next.

It is always easier to imagine a project than to complete it. But it's impossible to complete a project without imagining it first.

Many of 2010's creations are already underway in my head. And many of 2009's themes and series have had to move over to make way for new themes. Or, they have been forced to mature so that I can grow.

Here we go ...

Paper Sculpture

2009-12-19T08:20:00.000-08:00

At the end of every year, David and his coworkers give their two bosses each a bottle of fine wine. Most years, I make a special wrapping which is usually a paper sculpture. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of previous years' pieces, but I did take pictures of this years'. The pictures are not great, because I had to take them in the middle of the night when the light was not so good, but here they are. These were the best wine sculptures so far.

Painting on my IPhone

2009-12-12T10:16:00.001-08:00

I have been meaning to talk about painting on my IPhone for awhile. Of course, IPhone has painting apps. The one I use is called Brushes.

This means I can paint on the train on the way to work, while I am waiting for friends, anywhere.

Brushes has what seems like infinite color choices (I call it "free color"), transparancies and UNDOs. Having as many Undos as you want is fantastic. The new version of Brushes also has layers, but I just got it and haven't really used them.

Brushes also allows you to export a couple of interesting formats: "high resolution" (I haven't tried this yet, so I don't know what this is like, and a video of all the steps you took to make the painting.

Theoretically, you could look at Brushes as a way to explore ideas or sketch while out and about. But really, the images are very influenced by the medium.

You "paint" with your finger, which is wierd, but primal, and the surface is very, very small, which seems odd.

But I try lots of different kinds of ideas out, because there's no overhead of materials and space.

Lots more digital paintings are at Wide Eyes Raw.

Eskimo and Inuit

2009-12-09T19:20:00.000-08:00

The Bear turns into the Shaman.
The Mask leads the Spirit on its Way.
The stick that plugs the wound.
The Spirit wears the Mask on the inside of her head.
The Shaman sees his own skeleton as he transforms.
Inside is outside.
The birds are attached to the standard by bloody sticks.
Interlocked Spirals on the inside of the Mind.

De Young. Collection of Thomas G. Fowler.

New Book

2009-12-05T09:16:00.000-08:00

I keep journals, lots of journals -- with an anachronistic nineteenth-century attention to detail and insistence on handwriting. I have a different journal for every workshop or class I have taken with notes on process, feelings, people I met, photographs, etc.

My main journal is about ideas. It is where I explore the concepts behind my work and collect impressions, quotes, words. Lots of words.

Well, I just finished filling up my latest journal and it is time to make a new one. This is a kind of ritual that involves decorating the book, numbering its pages and covering it with some loved scrap of fabric.

I use a store bought blue-ruled hardbound book. Then add the embellishments. This could take a couple of weeks. This time, I bought some new rubber stamps on Etsy, where some really fine artists hand-carve rubber stamps. And they are beautiful, special, very inspiring.

I number the all the pages in the book using a rubber stamp set.

I decorate the title page

Then I add an index.

Then I decorate the last page.

When I cover it with fabric, I have to also prepare some end papers to tuck the fabric into.

All a big production. But one of my great joys in life.

Ra-Balisk Temple, November 28

2009-11-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

At The DeYoung artist-in-residence gallery.

There are three principles in creation: space, time and knowlege
Even in stillness there is movement
The movement of space
The movement of time
The movement of knowledge
The pyramid is a recipient of the rays of the sun, the flame that sparks life.
The right and left sides are time and space.
Long ago knowledge was kept in the pyramids of the earth.
This knowlege was sent to the stars above.
The stars projected their knowledge back to the pyramids.

Ra-Balisk Temple by Jim Berenholtz and Gregangelo.

Cyanotype November 21

2009-11-28T08:58:00.000-08:00

David and I ventured up to Sonoma Community Center to take a workshop on making Cyanotypes, taught by Mary Schisler.

Cyanotype is a type of primitive photography where paper or fabric is treated with the photographic chemicals, then exposed to sunlight. Images are made by using various things to block the sunlight. Cyanotypes are blue. Ultimately the images are blue and white, but so many interesting effects can be realzed by using objects of different opacity or distance from the paper to cast the images.

David used marbles, bottles and wires. I used stencils of vellum and plastic and conte crayon.

We were very excited by the results and will be printing again soon in our back yard.

My flickr photostream of the class is here.

Images of my cyanotypes at Wide Eyes Raw.

Chrysalis Studio Show, November 19

2009-11-28T08:51:00.000-08:00

I make my monotypes at Chrysalis Studio at SOMARTS. It is run by Katie Gilmartin who offers classes in Monotype and Linocut printmaking. She is a great teacher and has enabled and inspired dozens of novice printmakers.

Each November she invites her students to show their work at the SOMARTS gallery. This year I showed two Making Light pieces. I also did a demonstration of making monotypes.

Big Blue Deal, November 14, 2009

2009-11-27T13:43:00.001-08:00

Big Deal is a huge party thrown by Visual Aid to benefit artists struggling with life-threatening illnesses. All donated artwork sells for $160, making the work of many of the Bay Area's most interesting artists available at a very affordable price. I support this organization and honor the work that they do. This year, I donated 2004 Atmosphere, which was sold in the first half hour of the show.

The party was spectacular, the drinks and music enticing, and the art was mostly Blue, as it was the Big Blue Deal.

Revellers in front of a spectacular photo of David Bowie.

2004 Atmosphere

SFSound November 11, 2009

2009-11-27T12:48:00.001-08:00

We went over to Meridian Gallery to hear SFSound Group's "New-ish Music from Germany and Austria." The concert was held in a long, narrow room upstairs where it was possible to hear all the sounds. They were recording the concert, so I hope we will be able to snag a cd or re-hear the inspiring performance on the web somewhere.

They played three pieces:

Helmut Lachenmann's Dal niente (Interieur III) (1970), solo clarinet by Matt Ingalls

Olga Neuwirth's Fondamenta (1998). This piece made me feel very calm and trancy. I loved the way it created an alternate space to be in. Matt Ingalls, bass clarinet,John Ingle, baritone and tenor saxophone,Monica Scott, cello.

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Kurzwellen (1969). The central part of the sound of this piece is the static, distant voices, and rhythmic pulses of a de-tuned shortwave radio. The instruments riffed on and extended these sounds to expound upon the romance of distant and indistinct waves of sounds emanating from exotic and unknown lands. Matt Ingalls, clarinet, electronics, John Ingle, baritone and tenor saxophone,Monica Scott, cello, Chris Froh, percussion, Kjell Nordeson, percussion, Christopher Jones, electronics, and all members playing shorwave radio.

Open Studios Oct 23 to 25, 2009

2009-11-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

I participated in Artspan's Open Studios this Fall by exhibiting my monotypes and etchings at The Clay Studio, SOMA, in San Francisco.

The show was so well attended that my little workspace was crowded all weekend. I met many wonderful new art enthusiasts, and got to re-connect with friends and collectors I had met in previous years.

It was very exciting to see the etchings and monotypes hanging together and really get a feel for the interconnectedness of my work. I work in several themes: Atmospheres, Dreamers, Explorers, Making Light, Missing Light, all having to do with our spiritual experiences.

When I got to take a look at the pictures that were taken over the weekend, I realized that the main enjoyment for me during Open Studios is talking about my work to so many visitors.

Wide Eyes Studio

2009-11-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

Wide Eyes Studio is where I will be sharing what's going on in my studio: processes, inspirations, dead-ends, breakthroughs, dreams.

I will also be posting about events I am involved in: exhibitions, demonstrations, workshops, discoveries.

I hope you'll come back frequently to take a peek into Wide Eyes Studio.