ya know it don't come easy...a painting that took years to resolve...Deference

Deference   oil/canvas   40 x 30 x .75

 Sometimes paintings paint themselves.  Rare but it happens.  Sometimes paintings go on and on forever with no satisfiable resolution in sight.  Sketches help, but are not guaranteed.  My goals in this work were to shift attention from the face and figure to the foot of this seated dancer.  After years and years of figure painting, I know that this was a lofty goal.  The face and hands are nearly always the focal area.  So, in effect, I was reversing the norm as well as the norm-in-my-brain.  The model for this work posed in late autumn 2009.  Since those sessions she:  graduated from college, married, moved to New York, moved back, bought a home and had a baby.  All those changes.  And all of those changes virtually mirrored those changes taking place on the canvas.  Although I feel that I have achieved resolution, I wouldn't want to go through this painful process again.

Enough of the upending.  More sketches.  More planning.  More thinking.

Have I learned my lesson?  Probably not.

Paint Like No One's Watching

Deference   oil/canvas   40 x 30 x .75

My sister once gave me a small gilded plaque that said, "Dance Like No One's Watching". I guess one could infer that would mean without any self-consciousness whatever. Letting it all hang out. I read once that dancing was one of the most right-brained activities there is....totally in the moment...just feeling the music....no words....no instructions. How nice. This Saturday Night is the Akron Art Walk from 5-10 pm. What a wonderful way to spend the evening! I will be painting at our ASA studio on the third floor of Summit Artspace at 140 E. Market Street until 9:30 pm along with a motley group of painters from The Akron Society of Artists. I am told that our model will be a dancer.....dancers are my favorites models as they are comfortable with their bodies and seem to hold to a higher notion of "the dance" above "the self". I will attempt to paint like no one's watching.