Hello world, it’s your favorite girl- chu chu chu chu chu cherry bomb. I have the capacity to speak and respond very crass or be very intellectually stimulated in the same instant. I grew up in a rural town. Not one of my extended family has ever had a remote desire to visit New York City. However, that is part of my unique story as an artist and I cherish how I appreciate simplicity like the quietness of marsh grasses swaying on a still Summer day.
Last night I went to the screening of the new Godard documentary which is preceded by a series of collages and paintings he made as his last and unfinished short film, “Trailer of a Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars”.
I love the collages so much. The images had orchestral accompaniment and dialogue at times, and other times pure silence to absorb the imagery and translated text. In the biography documentary, I resonated with his loneliness and anger, of all things. He went so far with his conceptual deconstruction of filmmaking that he lost himself and wasn’t making anything that anyone would consider watchable. In the 1960’s and 70’s, he hated the middle class / bourgeoisie and their blind consumerism. Nowadays he probably more so hated the 1%. He makes me feel validated as a laborer and artist. Joe recently used the term, being in the “orbit of wealth”. It is a sad thing to watch. The middle class can kiss ass all they want but at the end of the day, they are there to be exploited and used, just like the working class. That’s it. Lol can you sense my anger?
I also visited the Frick yesterday to see Giorgione’s The Three Philosophers 1508-9. It is much larger and more complex than I realized.
It is really so good and weird that it hurts. I first learned of Giorgione earlier this year through a book I read about and then bought/read, “Giorgione’s Ambiguity”. I did a value sketch to also think about compsition and movement. There is always a feeling of darkness in his work. He doesn’t paint landscapes with pastoral sentiment like everyone else of his time. Several figures may compose a scene but they do not interact with each other. In this piece, the lightest value is the sky/background, so how is our eye still drawn to the detail of the foreground figures? Hypothesis: I see a big X with the center being the seated figures hands. That’s where we are directed to begin looking, and we move op the top right side of the X which goes from one philosopher’s head to the next. The farthest right figure’s arm holding the paper leads us down and around to the left again. It is at this next pass that you allow yourself to drift from the figures and explore the silhouette of the trees, and finally the flying leaves, the sunset, the steps in the stone. I am in love with a 500 year old gay painter and musician. My chances are slim.
I also visited Jenna Gribbon’s solo show at LDG. Her paintings are 10 ft tall. She is a master of color and three dimensionality in an unfinished, paint stroke-y way.
I was in my studio for 10 hours today. I felt wise, playful, scientific, and productive. That’s what I can do 5 days a week for the rest of my life.