The New Paintings (Part
Two)
It’s always good to write these
summaries or analysis, or what ever they turn out to be, with a pile of work to
look at and see if it has a point, or an improvement, a direction, something to
describe what the point of this latest flourish has been about. This time out
it seems to be in search of a true style, using what I’ve learned and blending
it into a newer statement.
I started out making a copy of
an original copy by Vincent. A bowl of flowers that he had painted in Paris
about 1887 or so, and I had seen in one of my adventures to the National Gallery
to see the Annenberg or Barnes collections pass through and when I got home,
I painted the original
that Deborah, Judy’s middle daughter, liked so much I painted one for her
(second),
and then one for Tina (third)
Judy’s youngest daughter and, alas, another (forth)
for Regina so they’d each have one. These were Vangogh, using that style and
each “evolved” becoming more abstractions of the first and for me, therefore,
new.
Thought next it best to get back
to home and paint spring, so Spring,
and Bluebells with
Red1 and Red2
(portraits of my struggles) finally got me to look down for Feet,
and then you just have to do something called Face
it. I think this brief fling was an attempt to get started at more serious
painting but I hadn’t left the work force yet, so it was a superficial dab
at a point. Blue Tree
was a fall attempt to be precise and general in the same picture.
I wanted to learn more about
painting trees and I wanted to do them like Father Claude, so I did a series
of exercises to give me a feel for trees and Monet (one,
two, three,
four, five,
six). A
Self-Portrait and two VanGogh’s (The
Bedroom, again, and The
Harvest) followed by Debby’s
Field gave me confidence and a better sense of freedom. Thanks again,
always, to Claude.
By now I was retired, so to
speak, and the following are more at what I’m trying to get at. I think they’re
better stroked, better colored and free but moving towards something, not yet
arrived. It’s early to analyze these
A
painting of my leftist tendencies
Hb.4.26.2002
