Year: 2009

I floundering a bit after my big project, Chemo.  Little paintings seem minor, but I can’t afford the time or money to do big projects.   Or the space.  I’m going to be like those people they find dead in their homes after all of their stuff has suffocated them.   WAH!  There’s still some room and time, so I’ll seize the day to paint!

I have a cardinal that just started an affair w/ my window.  They can be such persistent pests, banging into the window.   Today’s image is of poison ivy.  Although it doesn’t sound like it, I like living in the country.  Except no hi-speed.

Gregg’s working.  I’m working.  No holiday for us.

I realized I can’t treat the stonewall as a pattern.  I need to address every rock and every shadow.  The Galkyd med. is SHINY.  Maybe I need to thin is more.  Now I’m painting over parts of it.  It’s giving me fits in my photo.  That super white spot is a reflection, not a mega white rock.

This looks different from yesterdays work because it was UPSIDE DOWN.  We discovered that this morning as we swapped places w/it and Chemo Today.  My studio space is small, and I wanted the screen closer to my tabouret(fancy French word for painting table).  Chemo is heavy but we were able to slide it.  Imagine my surprise when we set “A Good Marriage” right side up, and the reverse was upside down.  Anyway, I said I wanted to be more abstract, so now that is a red shadow or something in the grass.    Who cares?  I’m experimenting w/ Galkyd med. which is why some parts are more shiny.  And we have to work on my light fixtures.  They do NOT stay pointed where I want.   All considered, I’m glad I’m painting and not doing something else, like fighting a war or cancer.

The NYT asked artists what they were doing doing this recession.  Most are doing whatever to hang on, sales are down, to say the least.  Most said they were using the time to be creative and explore, because they aren’t trying to please anyone but themselves.   People gush about “talent” when I say I’m an artist.  Maybe the word should be “compulsion”.   Creators need to create.

This is on the reverse of “A Good Marriage”.  I had thought of doing a theme called “Not a Good Marriage” with poison ivy climbing the corner between the two walls.  But I think about this in any setting besides my studio, and I want it to be positive.  What about a rock wall is positive, I can’t say, yet, but I’ll think of something.  Most of all I want to give myself permission to go very abstract.  This is the beginning, the skeleton.  I’m betting the fleshed out piece will be quite different.  Happy 22, the twenty second of every month is my lucky day.

Forget about Mexican swine flu, we are in the middle of a cancer epidemic.  So far the flue kills hundreds.  Cancer kills thousands and bankrupts families because so many have lost their health insurance.  Why does the US persist in believing that killing off the poor is evolution?

I’ve decided to change the title of this painting.  I don’t want to give Ken Lewis credit for destroying America.  Someone said to me that it was my fault that my rate jumped to 26.9%.  My contention is that I’d never missed a payment until the economy went down the chutes.  And I did not cause that, although F. says I am responsible for world hunger.  This one IS NOT MY FAULT.

I think it’s because we had a drought last year that the dogwoods are so WHITE this year.  I do not like white houses, or most things white, but I’m impressed by the trees.  Also, the fact that they are part of the cycle of nature that moves along regardless of people.  Unless some knothead cuts them down.