Final Paintings From 2012

Here are the last two paintings from my 2012 work. Thanks thanks and more thanks to Susan Copas for teaching me how to paint. Not just how to paint, but also how to talk about my paintings. How to think about my paintings, and how to let go of what you would typically think of as a mistake in a painting. The first image is of the painting titled "Intent". The title came as a collaboration with my friends on Facebook. I wasn't sure at first, so I put it out there for suggestions. Funny because the final title was suggested by me. However, it did help to hear suggestions from others. When I first started painting it, I thought it was going to be an epic fail, but as it turns out, it's one of my favorites. The second image you see, is a painting titled "Event Horizon - Poppy And Friends Prepare For Departure". Or just Even Horizon :). This was my first attempt with a large canvas. 5' X 3' ... actually not exactly five by three ... but pretty close. Susan showed me how to build the frame using 1X2 boards from the local lumber yard, and a few scrap corners of ply board in the corners for support. I love working in the larger size canvases. Every semester, the art students at the college exhibit their work, and vote on a people's choice. Event Horizon was chosen in it's category.

I think this is a pretty good place for me, with regard to where I am as a creator of visual expressions. I am so grateful to Susan for what I learned during her classes. But now I am ready to begin working on my own. I have easels set up in my homes both in Liberal, as well as in Hays, and I am beginning to evolve in the imagery I am wanting to create on the canvas. I am also going to begin experimenting with the acrylic medium. Stay tuned, and thanks for taking the time to look at my expressions. I wish I could show you them in person, because the screen display of these works do absolutely no justice at all to the actual work. Maybe I need to learn how to better photograph them. Maybe with more of a side lit orientation to accent the textures.

Opposite Charlie - 2012

Here is a closer look at Opposite Charlie. Charlie didn't start out as a figurative representation. Rather, it started out as an exercise in the utilization of opposing curves. Thus the name. I ran into some lines that were overlapping in ways I didn't think would work aesthetically, so I turned them into a solid shape, which then became what appears to be Charlie's hair do. I want to continue exploring the possibilities with the opposing curves. I think there is a lot of potential there, even if they don't end up the way Charlie did. When Charlie comes home, I want him to hang next to Greg's Velvet Elvis. I think the two will hit it off famously. :)

Forest For The Trees - With Artist

Here is a shot of the beautiful print and mount of the Forest For The Trees image. I absolutely love the aluminum frame. Notice how it looks like it's floating on the wall. Next year, I plan to print the 2nd FFTT image. It will be the same dimension, except it will be in a landscape orientation. The two images together will make a nice presentation on the wall of my office area in the basement of the Seward County Administration Building.

Playful Poodle - 2012

When I was young, Mom had me in piano lessons. I hated it, because I was a pretty typical kid. I didn't want to play the piano. I wanted to go outside and ride my bike. I'm sure it was hard for mom, because she had to constantly get after me to practice the recommended amount of time. Needless to say, my piano playing career didn't last very long. However I did last long enough to play in one recital. I had 2 songs that I played. To this day, I remember, not only the name of the first song, but I can still play it from start to finish. The name of the song was Playful Poodle. As I was photographing this painting today, I had an idea that I would immortalize that song by giving this painting the same name.

Synthetic Storm III - The Elephant In The Room - 2012

I should have posted this one first, because I started this one first. This is the 3rd, and most likely, the last in the series of Synthetic Storm images.

The Protagonist - 2012

This painting was a very spontaneous creation. I began by tracing my hand in the upper left portion of the canvas. I then just built the design from there. Very enjoyable experience. Spontaneous creations are definitely a positive experience. I have received some pretty positive feedback on this one.

Dora My Dora - 2012

This painting was inspired by Pablo's portrait of Dora Maar. At first, I had some trouble with this image. Not the figure, but the room in the background. So I did some adjustments, and felt pretty good with the fix.

Dancing In The Moonlight

This painting created itself. It is early August, and I am really anxious to start the Fall semester. I am excited to begin a new set of paintings. I am wanting to explore the non-representational abstract style.

This one is titled Dancing In The Moonlight - 2012

Fear Nymph

Here is my first effort for the summer 2012. I started with a plan to NOT plan the design, but rather to let the design create itself. I planned to do this by starting with a random mark on the canvas, and then just kind of build it out from there. As I finished the underpainting, I was not very confident that anything would come of this effort. However, I am pleasantly surprised to be rather happy with the finished painting.

Print 2/2

Here is a capture of print 2/2 of Turbines And Fog - 2010. This image will never be printed again in this size. 18 1/2 X 36. However, if you would like a print, I would be willing to start a new series, and round the measurements up to 20 X 40. I would be willing to print 25 of those. These prints will be framed differently however, but I think you will really enjoy them. I am going to print and frame them using a printing company out of Greeley, Colorado. They have a cool framing process, using what they call Alumiplaq. The name describes the materials. The frame is made entirely of aluminum, and there is no glass. The print is adhered to the aluminum, and then coated with a varnish, to protect the art.

When I am dead and gone, and I am considered an internationally renowned artist, these prints will be worth a billion, kagillion, schmedulakachilion .... dollars (evil grin). So be sure and get them while they last. Again, there will only be 25 of them. :)

Zag

This is the last painting from the Spring 2012 semester at Seward County Community College with Susan Copas. Zag is the alter ego that helps me define the vision behind my art.

Playful Partisans

It's an election year, so I thought I would paint something in honor of our great American political process.

Synthetic Storm II - Playful Partisans

Synthetic Storm

The purpose of my painting is not to match the couch. Rather, the purpose is to start a conversation. The length of the conversation is a yardstick to its significance. A good painting creates a long conversation. A great painting also creates a long conversation, well into the future.

Bob And Betty

I made a few last minute tweaks to my Bob And Betty. Here is the final iteration :)

New Kansas Images

Here are a few new Kansas images. :)

New Art

Some new art images. Bob & Betty is my new painting. :)

New Art Activities & Expressions

There has been a little bit of activity in the past several months since my last post.

First, I entered the following images for the 14th National Juried Art Exhibition at Baker Arts Center, in Liberal, Kansas.

 

Neither of them were chosen for display in the show. Being rejected was actually a good experience for me. Show me a successful artist, and I will show you a stack of rejection letters. Once you are able to truly comprehend the concept that art is a truly subjective effort, then you realize that rejection letters are just a part of the process. I personally think these two images would have printed and displayed quite nicely. The juror may have even agreed. However, she most likely thought the ones she chose will display even better.

It's ok with me, because I create my images for me first. If others like them, all the better. But the bottom line is, they have to be pleasing to me first.

2. I was honored to meet the great crop artist Stan Herd, when he installed, with the help of our great maintenance crew, one of his murals in Seward County's Administration Building. It was great to meet Stan. A very down to earth (no pun intended) man. A man who does not place himself above the others in the room. He is truly an inspirational artist, and fellow human being. Seward County will have the ribbon cutting ceremony for the mural install very soon.

3. I was recently given the opportunity to apply, and interview for the position of Member, on the Board of Directors, at Baker Arts Center. It was an honor to be presented with the opportunity. I enjoyed meeting the other board members, and the new Executive Director, Mike Brack, during the interview. They apparently liked me too, as they offered me the position, and I accepted. I am looking forward to learning the art world from the perspective of the art center, as opposed to artist or patron. It will be a great experience for me, and I am excited to begin the work.

Mike's appointment was published in the local newspaper, and I was very happy to read about all of the exciting new ideas he has in an effort to re-energize interest in the art center within the community. I too agree, that perceptions need to be updated to get the community more involved in the local art scene. I will be very supportive of his efforts as we move forward.

http://www.bakerartscenter.org/

4. Mary and I recently made a trip to Denver. We wanted to visit our daughter Amanda and her fiance Jen. It was a wonderful visit. We also had a nice lunch with my Dad, and Step-Mom. During our weekend visit, we took a trip downtown to take in the Clyfford Still museum. Clyfford Still is one of the pioneers of the Abstract Expressionist movement in painting. His work was one of the biggest influences in that movement.

http://clyffordstillmuseum.org

The museum is very nice, spacious, well organized, and the work and life of the artist is covered very comprehensively, with interactive digital displays on the history of the artist. The paintings were absolutely breathtaking. They were displayed very nicely, with no, or very little framing. In fact, it was really nice to be able to walk up close to the painting, and be able to see the raw canvas behind the paint. Wow. I did notice the security folks were keeping a close watch on me, as I was very close to the paintings, but was careful not to touch.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/legally_weird/2012/01/woman-rubs-butt-tries-to-urinate-on-30m-museum-painting.html

As you can see, the security is definitely watching out for weirdos like this one.

5. Also during our visit to Denver, I took some time to capture the downtown Denver skyline. Here are a few examples.

One of the great things I love about digital art, is that no one image is ever static. I can do and re-do these images any way I see fit. I absolutely love that. When you shoot in camera raw, your original image is always there, for you to start over with another creation in mind. These examples show one twisted image, one straight color, and one straight black and white. Well, actually, the color was manipulated a little. I changed the color of the sky. I absolutely love how the colors just pop though.

6. One last thing to share. I have recently taken up painting with oil on canvas. I enrolled in the Oil Painting I class at the community college in Liberal, and am very glad I did. Susan Copas is the art professor, and I am very happy with her instruction. She is very good, not only with her art, but also in how she approaches the art student. Teaching an art class is difficult, because as I mentioned before, art is a very subjective thing, and one must be very mindful of that when teaching. I have learned so much from Susan just in one half of a semester. Form, line, color, composition, color, color, and more color. I am looking forward to learning more. When I think about painting, I kick myself for not discovering this very therapeutic activity sooner. But I am also reminded, that I have plenty of time left to enjoy the process of learning that craft. Here is an image of the still life project in our class. Ha ha ... not bad for a first effort. Also, not bad, considering my interests in painting lean more toward the abstract. Surprised?

Kansas

Recently I took the camera for a stroll, and came back with some nice imagery of the Kansas landscape. I have been doing a lot of reading of late, and viewing photographs from the masters of still photography. Specifically Edward Weston, and Bill Brandt. I have been a big fan of Edward's work for many years, dating back to when I first learned of Ansel Adams. Ansel and Edward were probably the most influential photographers of their time. Ansel's work was much more in the main stream, however Edward's work excited me even more. Adams and Weston were the two A list names of the f/64 group. Bill Brandt is a name I have only recently become aware of. I purchased John Zarkowski's book entitled, "The Photographer's Eye," and noticed some of Bill's work there.

I started looking on the Internet for more about Bill, and came across the following quote, which I very much relate to in my work -

"I am not interested in rules and conventions ... photography is not a sport. If I think a picture will look better brilliantly lit, I use lights, or even flash. It is the result that counts, no matter how it was achieved. I find the darkroom work most important, as I can finish the composition of a picture only under the enlarger. I do not understand why this is supposed to interfere with the truth. Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others."

One thing I have noticed about these masters, is the fact that they are able to cover multiple genres. Edward Weston went from landscapes, to still life, to nudes, without skipping a beat. Bill Brandt also mentions this in his interviews. I do like the idea of dabbling in a wider array of subjects. These Kansas images are a pretty stark contrast to the twisted turbines of the past few years.

Wendy

I am doing a little mental gymnastics this morning. Yesterday afternoon, I attended the opening reception of the 13th National Juried Art Exhibition at Baker Arts Center, here in Liberal, Kansas. I had submitted two of my Digital Art images for consideration, and one of them was accepted. Windmill Monster.

After attending the reception, I wanted to take stock in a few of the things I have learned from this experience. As I was preparing some thoughts for this blog post, I was thinking that being accepted into a national juried show is a sort of milestone for me. But I was forgetting that I had previously had a couple photographs accepted into the 5 State Juried show a few years ago. The 5 State show is hosted by the Hays Arts Council in Hays, Kansas. I have always been a little innocent and naive about the whole process of entering art works into shows like this. So many things to learn. For me, at the end of the day, it has always been, it is now, and I think it will always be about my passion for creating interesting works, and presenting them in a way that allows other people to view them, and critique them. It has never been, it isn't now, and I don't think it will ever be about competing and/or making money, though at times the framework of these shows appear to cater to those visions. I think most of the artists who participate in these shows understand that selling your work in this venue is not the goal. At first, I thought I had under-priced my print. When I filled out the form, and listed the price, I wanted to price it low enough so that it was not presumptuous, but high enough to at least make back the money I spent on the print, frame, and commission to the art center. The price that I settled on was $200. It wasn't until a week or so after, that I did the math again, and concluded that if I sell this piece, I will actually lose a little money on the deal. But as I viewed the other pieces in the show, I noticed that many of the other artists had their works priced very similarly, and some were even a little lower, considering the size of their work, and my guess at how much they had invested in it. I'm actually hoping the piece does not sell, because I want to keep it for my own wall.

I was doing some thinking about how this image came to be. Mental gymnastics. Any artist needs to be able to communicate their vision when asked. Thus the reason for my mental gymnastics. I have shared this image with my friends on Facebook, and received a few comments comparing it to the work of Salvador Dali. It's not the level of art they were pointing out, but rather, I think, the style or genre, that this piece would fit into.

Salvador is the top of the mountain in the Surrealism genre, and so I started reading a little about this movement.

The first thing I took note of as I was reading about Surrealism, is that it was spawned from the Dada movement. Dada was a sort of protest of the societal norms of the day. Anti-art is another way of describing Dada. I'm not sure I agree with that. The point I think is important is the fact that it was born of rebelliousness. I feel a bit of that rebelliousness in my art expressions.

One of the most important aspects of the art I create is the response I get from the viewer. Additionally in the response I DON'T get. The response I want is, "Wow, that is cool. What I see is...." The response I don't want is, "Wow, that looks so real." Or , "Wow, that looks EXACTLY like the scene you were attempting to depict."

I learned a few things about Surrealism in my reading this morning. I found a dictionary definition of the word. It reads, "Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."

Automatism is the idea that you put your pencil to the paper, and just start drawing. Sort of a visual form of stream of conscious. I can see how this image would fit with this definition. When I think about the day that I created Wendy, the process went something like this.

I started with a digital photograph of a windmill. I opened the image up in Photoshop. Not having any formal training in Photoshop, I set out to teach myself. So I just started turning and twisting the knobs with this image. In the process of twisting the knobs, I serendipitously stumbled upon Wendy. I twisted it with the "Twirl" filter, and then I flipped the image, creating a second layer. When the two layers were stitched together, Wendy was created. Actually I'm not sure if Wendy was created or discovered. Probably a little of both. But I guess the point is, I think this is similar to what they talk about in the use of the word "Automatism." 

Update - About 5 hours after this was first posted. I got to thinking about this definition of Surrealism, and I'm beginning to have a problem with it. This definition attempts to describe the process of an artistic expression. This process could be employed in the creation of expressions in many different genres. Also, after thinking about it a bit longer, I don't really think that Wendy was really a result of "Automatism" or "Stream of Conscious." As I described the process, there is an element of that, but there was also an element of purpose as well. Mental gymnastics, schmental schmempackschticks. I think at the end of the day, an artist creates what he or she creates. I think I need to leave the defining to someone else. The way I define surrealism is something that is outside of what you would find in conscious reality. This is what I try to do.

Dreamer

For those that don't really know me, I'm a dreamer. I have always been a dreamer, for as long as I can remember. Even as a kid, I can remember times when I would just love to lay in the sun, staring at the clouds. I would look for odd shapes in the clouds, and try to figure out what the shapes most resembled. I'm sure most of us have had those warm summer days.

I think my propensity to dream, however, gets me into trouble. I know I drive my wife Mary nuts. She is constantly reminding me to watch the road when we're driving together. My mind is constantly moving. I'm forever dreaming up new ideas. Mary loves to tell the story about how I have endeavored to take on new projects that never actually get started. Once I was going to take up the piano again. We even hauled a piano up from Ashland once for that very purpose. But it just never happened. She also brings up the time I had decided to take up painting. She bought me a starter kit, complete with a small canvas, a few tubes of paint, and a few different sized brushes. It collected dust. Then there was the time I was going to take up model building. I bought a model (one of those aircraft carriers), and I did actually work on it. But it was never finished, and to this day, I do not know where that model is. It's likely taking up landfill space somewhere now.

One dream I always return to, however, is my dream of making cool images with a camera. Photography was the one dream that actually fit into my creative flow. I never could draw with a pencil. But for some reason, I took to drawing with light.

Making cool images. Those three words seem to be where I have always landed. When I enlisted in the Navy, photography was the goal. The Navy's photography schools were the best, according to the recruiters. I took them at their word, and enlisted in the Navy. They were right. I gained a great deal of knowledge and experience as a Photographer's Mate in the United States Navy. The only problem was, I was still a dreamer. Now this is not to say that dreaming is a bad thing. You just want to balance it with the other important things in life. This is partly why I didn't fit into the lifestyle of the military. Dreamers are not in high demand. Uncle Sam wants doers.

Here is an image of August Sigur and I, where the purpose of the image is, again, best described with those three words. Making cool images.

The idea was to make it appear as though the rolls of film were flying out of the cameras. We used a thin string thread through the film spool, and strung up to the false ceiling above. Then we photographed the scene a bit darker than normal, in an effort to help hide the string from the final image. If only we had the clone stamp tool back then. But the dark background, and the low light on the scene in the final print, seemed to do a pretty good job of hiding the string. If you look closely though, you can see the string on the film cannister on the right.

That photograph was captured in 1990. Here we are now, in the year 2010. Twenty years later, and I'm still stringing up objects in my effort to make cool images. Ever the dreamer.

Recently, I was driving over to one of the county buildings I provide computer network services for. I was troubleshooting a DSL circuit. Anyway, the parking lot for this building is not paved, and in the middle of this field of dirt, lay this old wrench. I can't imagine how it got there. The tool is likely an antique. But it must have dropped out of someone's old pickup and there it lay for who knows how long, until it caught my eye. The shape of the tool reminded me of some of the images I had been working on that year. Twisted is the word that best describes the images. Like this one ...

So, I picked up the wrench, dropped it in the floor of the back seat of my car, and carried on with my day. That wrench sat in the back seat of my car for about a year before I actually took it out, and photographed it. Again, I just had one thing in mind, which is described with those three words. Making cool images.

Remembering what Sigur and I did with the film cannisters, I took some thin thread, and attempted to string this wrench up. Originally my intent was to string it in such a way so that I had a fully frontal lit wrench in the foreground, and nothing but blue sky in the background. This didn't work well, though for a couple reasons. The first reason was time. I shot this during my lunch hour, and so I didn't really have a lot of time to be fooling around with it. Also I noticed that stringing this wrench up was going to be harder than it looked. 

However, I did manage to string it up in the front yard of my rental house in Liberal. Here is how it turned out with no digital manipulation (other than the removal of the string with the clone stamp tool in Photoshop).

Then I endeavored to make a cool image even cooler, by doing some additional manipulation. This second image was achieved by isolating the wrench from the sidewalk and lawn in the background, and applying a black and white filter. I then used the clone stamp tool to remove the small chunk of concrete inside the turn below the wrench. I then used the liquefy filter to further twist the wrench handle. Have a look...

I thought this looked pretty cool, but I wanted to do something a little different with it. In my original intent, I had the wrench against a blue sky. Well, that didn't work out, but I thought I could put the wrench against a black background as an alternative. So I did that. Also, I have been noticing that when I use the liquefy filter, and twist the imagery, I notice the degradation and/or distortion of the pixels in the area that is twisted. So, to counter this, I decided to use the clone stamp tool in an effort to restore some of that distortion. Here is the result.

All three images have a completely different look and feel, but they all come from the same original image. And, they come from the original intent of Making Cool Images. My favorite dream.