Samain Thanksgiving Moon
Into On the Move Fitness for a new workout: side lunges on the TRX, oblique isometrics with bands, a twisting shoulder press, planks, stepups with weight, push ups from an exercise ball, crunches on an exercise ball.
I always feel so much better when I exercise routinely. Long ago I decided regular exercise was a matter of identity. Am I an exerciser, or not? Once I decided I was an exerciser I’ve been able to maintain regular exercise. When I fall away after a chaotic schedule or a long trip, I remind myself, I’m an exerciser. Then I start again.
Working on color field paintings. Finding myself looking, seeing, in a whole different way. For example when Kate and I were on our way to the radiologist Wednesday as dawn broke, I saw the color bands in the sky as inspiration for painting. Began wondering how to mix paints to get that color, how to arrange those colors on a canvas. Yesterday at On the Move I noticed a droopy face in the wood grains of a bathroom door. Oh, I could do that! While I did my cardio I wondered about the deep blue wall. Could I just cut a rectangle out of the sheet rock, frame it and call it found art?
My friends Stefan and Lonnie have devoted the last three years to a traditional painting education. The atelier in Florence where they’ve studied makes the usual atelier argument that representational painting is real painting, the sharp turn taken by Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh and later DuChamp, ManRay, Bacon, Pollock, Rothko a mistake.
I’ve always felt that an argument over “true” art is doomed at the beginning. I’m more a DuChampian, art is what an artist makes. That means, at least to me, that the color field painters, the pop artists, the abstract painters, fluxus folks, are making art. It also means that those still creating representational art are making art. Why fight?
My interest, at least right now, is in color, just color, arranging it on a flat surface in a pleasing or provocative or evocative way. I intend to make abstract works inspired by nature. The shape and color and texture of mountains at different times of day. The sky at sunrise and sunset. The night sky, especially moons. Streams. Faces in wooden doors. Clouds. I’ve noticed for a long while that even the most Rococo flourishes are often direct copies of natural forms. Not sure where this will take me, but I’m really enjoying the enhanced seeing, the thoughts about color, the mix of brushes and paints and palette knives.
