An Irish Dancer.

This is part two of the Myerly Family request: Irish Dance. This one is for Sophia Myerly who is very much loves traditional Irish dance and studies at the Rince Na Chroi school in St. Paul, MN.

Unfortunately, don't know much about anything Irish. However, years ago, I used to frequent Kieren's Irish Pub where I would often order chips with curry and a Guinness after getting off work (which sounds delicious right now). Sometimes I would stay late with friends and listen to the Irish bands that played there. I also saw a great number of Celtic knot work tattoos in the early nineties and have always liked the Pogues, but somehow I feel these things don't give me a true understanding of Ireland.

She sent me a link to the Rince Na Chroi website and I checked out several galleries of photos of dance performances. I was immediately impressed with how amazing every one's hair is. (Then I got suspicious and googled "Irish Dance Wigs". That explained it.) The effects of hair bouncing up and haloing the head is quite stunning. It made for an interesting visual image. Because of the nature of Irish dance, in photographs, the performers appear to be standing still, levitating while their hair is going crazy. I consulted some You Tube videos to understand exactly what was going on in those pictures. It looks like magic.

I made this painting as a composite of several dancers. After trying more elaborate backgrounds, I decided to go simple and abstract. There is a tiny hair of mine stuck in the lumpy white of the background that I left. It was hard to get out and not very noticeable. So, if I ever get lost and someone needs a DNA sample of me to reunite me with my people...

As a side note, I've recently become aware that the subject matter of the paintings here seem to be changing. This is the third painting in a row with a human figure. Where have all the animals gone? I'm not sure if it is the requests or how I'm relating to them.

Check out:

http://www.rincenachroi.com/

Prayers Rise As Incense.

Last January, I went to liturgy on the morning of my Name Day, January 7, for St. John the Forerunner, as I try to do every year. Afterwards, when I was about to leave, I was rounded up by some people I had never met to get coffee and koulourakia in the Fireside room. I had no where to go, so, I joined them. Usually, I'm pretty quiet about what I do and prefer to hear other people's stories but the day before I had just made the first post for this blog. And it was my special day. I was so excited, I couldn't stop blathering about myself and the blog. Luckily, they were interested (Or humored me).
This painting is for the Myerly Family,,who I am pleased to have met that day. They are members of St. Mary's Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, as am I, and are kind and observant Eastern Orthodox Christians who travel a very long way to go to church. God bless them.
They gave me a couple of requests last week and this is the first. Though on this one, I deviated some from their request.
Their request was one simple word, Eucharist. (or, rather, a complex word). No elaboration. I didn't really know what to do with it. I took it and meditated on it hoping I would be handed the beautiful gift of an idea. It didn't happen. I realized God was going to make me work for it, as always. Free will is problematic.
I went literal. I started this painting as a scene of an Orthodox Priest serving communion, but it wasn't working. Too static and the subject matter seemed so intimate. I felt wrong portraying this in a tiny format.
Half way through I changed it. Here, the Priest is censing the church, blessing the icons and the people and the church. The abundant incense rises like prayers. I can think of all kinds of ways that this applies to the eucharist, but I'll let leave that to be contemplated by whoever wants to. And maybe the connection isn't there.
I may have been a little off the mark for the subject of this piece, but I think this is a pretty good painting. I don't think this photograph does it justice. Some of the paintings here don't look as good on the blog as in real life. (It's hard to shoot small glossy paintings). However, there have been a couple of exceptions that I think look better as a digital image. When this happens I feel a little like I am cheating. But maybe all of this is in my mind.
It's hard to have a good perspective on what I'm doing; to detach myself from these paintings. Only after a couple of weeks looking back do I have a decent perspective. But not always. Sometimes, when I'm working on a piece and I have the luxury of time, I will hide it from myself for a week or two and try to see it again with new eyes before completing it. I often put paintings in front of a mirror when I'm working. To see the image reversed brings out what is really there as opposed to what my mind has come to believe I'm doing. Or turning them upside down might work.

Anyway, I thank the Myerlys, again. I wish them a beautiful and meaningful Lenten season.
Their second painting involves Irish dance. It will be up soon.

Shellae Doesn't Remember Her Dreams.

I'm back to the blog after about two weeks of not making an entry. I've spent this time working and reworking some larger paintings for a couple of show possibilities. But, I'm pleased to be back blogging and I feel refreshed with a new perspective on what I'm doing here. I'm getting looser and channelling a weird tiny painting energy.

I've been sitting on this painting request for about two weeks, so I've had time to stew and revise in my brain. It is for my friend and coworker Shellae Mueller. She is very kind and has been spreading word around about this blog (maybe more then I have). She's a blog evangelist. So, I wanted to make her a painting.

Shellae couldn't think of anything for a long time, then finally one day she started talking about dreams and how she doesn't remember them. She is certain that she has them but they are always forgotten by morning. (The only exception is the occasional nightmare that sometimes involves a clown, but I was told, "No Clowns").

So with that, I am left with the project of painting a dreamless sleep. Easy, right?

I didn't want to use black or eerie images. I wanted something light, so, I decided use the wood for what it is and drill holes. It turns out, these are where her dreams are escaping. They lead to ether. Maybe when she gets this painting she will plug them with tiny things to try to stop this. I would suggest wet tissues.

Thank You, Shellae.

I have three more orders lined up and will be painting and posting quickly over the next couple of weeks so keep checking. Really.

A Tibetan Buddhist and her Border Collie.

Leon Mott has come back for more. This time it's for a gift for his mother on her 60th birthday. I'm honored. The only information he gave me was that she loves her Border Collie and that she is a Tibetan Buddhist. He wanted me to run with that. I instantly thought that this was an awesome request, and a challenging one.
I spent a lot of time reading cliff notes versions of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and looking at pictures of Border Collies, which I guess are great herding dogs. My original idea was to have a Border Collie herding animals into nothingness to illustrate the transitory nature of the physical world. I began painting this on my tiny wood and quickly realized that this was not going to be effective in small scale. I needed something different. I emailed Leon and asked if his mom liked Tibetan art. He said "yes" and mentioned "thangkas", which is a type of Himalayan Buddhist iconography. I had never heard of them before, but after seeing a few images I was taken. I thought I could maybe borrow something here with the style. The symbolism was so dense in these paintings that I knew I had better keep my fingers away from it unless I really wanted to study (which I still may well do).
I was very unhappy with my initial painting so, even though I was nearly finished, I gessoed over it and started new. This is the first time I've done that in this project. I turned the block vertical and began again, this time using a flattened perspective and bright colors. I outlined almost every object in the painting and stole landscape elements from the thangka paintings. (Funny enough, I often use a flattened perspectives and dark outlines in my own work but with a Byzantine reference. It's strange I didn't jump on this first). I avoided using images of the Buddha or a Bodhisattva because I don't know what I'm doing with the religious part. I'm not Buddhist. It didn't seem sincere to me.
I'm not expecting anyone to look at this painting and think it was stolen from a Himalayan monastery, but I think some of the aesthetic is there.

Part of my reason for doing this project is to open myself up to working in ways that I wouldn't normally work and to expand the bag of ju-jus that I pull from. I don't want to get constipated. This painting was a great experience.
Thank You.

Birds Flying Quiet and Vague.

My five year old son is often with me when I paint. His name is Themistocles, but usually he goes by "Theo" for short (though my father prefers the diminutive "Themistoclaki"). Sometimes Theo sits next to me and paints as well, but usually he works on something else. He always does a lot of gluing and cutting projects but lately he has favored stringing plastic beads that, when finished, he tries to sell for $53.
Theo often wants to keep the paintings I make for this blog. When it comes time to send them out, he sometimes pleads with me to give them to him instead. I've told him that I will make one for him when I have a little break. I didn't have a line up of orders this week so this seemed to be the time.
I asked him what he wanted and his immediate response was "birds flying".
About a week ago, the two of us went to pick up Beth, his mother (who I happen to be married to), from work. As we were waited for her in the car, we watched a huge flock of birds as they flew in circles above the buildings.
"I wish we were all birds", Theo said, "then you and Mama wouldn't have to go to work and I wouldn't have to go to school". Having the mind of a child, I was instantly sucked in and imagined us just flying around all day in bliss. It sounded beautiful.
When Beth got into the car and Theo repeated this, she reminded him that birds actually do work. They have to make nests and hustle for food. Sometimes the mothers have to leave their babies in the nest alone for long periods of time. Beth is obviously more sophisticated than I am. I agreed and pretended to turn it into a lesson for Theo.

I had a dream a couple of nights ago that that someone was ripping off this blog, making the same paintings that I have made and writing similar entries. It turned out to be Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. I got an order to do a painting of the Philadelphia skyline. Since I'd been there and had a feel for the city, I decided (for some reason) that it would be perfect to paint all of the buildings in yellow and brown. After I finished, I checked John Edwards' blog and he did the exact same thing! Jerk.

I wanted to make this bird painting quiet and vague like Theo's imagined bird life. I consulted him throughout the painting and he kept asking me to add more birds. So I did (within reason). Why not? On this painting he was the boss. He seems happy with it now.

In other news...
I've found out that it takes about two weeks for acrylic paint to start molding in a "Sta-Wet" pallet. Just a white fuzz. It's not revolting and doesn't smell but I think it would add a strange texture. Maybe there is a use for that.
So far I've received one drawing from the suggested "Bend in the Wire" drawing exercise. When I get a couple more, I'm going to find a place on the blog to post them. So, please start drawing and don't be too critical or shy. It'll be better that way.
This week I have an order I'm excited to paint. It involves a Border Collie and Tibetan Buddhism. Really. We'll see how it goes. It should be up by the weekend.

Existential German Kitten Earnestly Considering What It Means To Be Good.

Karen Lillis is writer who currently lives in Pittsburgh, but from what I understand, she has lived almost everywhere. I've just read her recently published novel The Second Elizabeth which is a beautiful piece of writing. It reads like long, rhythmic prose poem and is incredibly introspective and a little hypnotizing.

Karen Lillis is also the person who gave me the term "Paint-on-Demand" which is what I'm using these days when describing this blog. I love it. It's to the point and ridiculous.

I wanted to make a painting for Karen. I emailed and suggested she close her eyes and think of what she wants to see and to not over think it. In about two minutes I got and email back that simply said, "Kitten being good".

Really?

That's not what I expected from an experimental writer. But it did make me think about how cute kittens are always depicted as being mischievous. Actually, cute everything. Mischievous is cute when it's not on your watch.

My Aunt Katina had a picture hanging in her kitchen of about a ten year old boy hiding in a doorway sneaking a cigarette. The boy had big eyes and it was painted in soft colors. This is one of the few things I remember about her apartment in Athens where my family visited her when I was a preteen. Kids smoking was cute in Greece in the 1980's. Cats destroying screen doors and and knocking over food is cute to Americans always.

So, how does a kitten be "good"? My only real answer was "use the litter box". By strange coincidence, my family adopted a large long haired cat this week (someone told me he is a Maine Coon?) and my greatest hope for him was that he knew where to put his poop. Luckily, he did.

I started this painting as a more straight forward cute cat picture with pastely colors and soft lines like the Greek smoking boy. It looked like something you might find in the bric-a-brack section of the Salvation Army that was made by Hallmark decades ago. Unhappy with that, I sabotaged it the next day and gave it a German Expressionist edge. I made it harsher with stronger colors and sharp unusual angles and took away some compositional elements to make the room emptier. In this version, the cat seems to be having some existential woes. Maybe he himself is contemplating what "being good" means.

Here is a link to where Karen Lillis' The Second Elizabeth can be found.

www.amazon.com/Second-Elizabeth-Karen-Lillis/dp/0978296214/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233586675&sr=1-1
-or for more Lillis info-
www.myspace.com/eyescorpion

Bend in the Wire.

Leon Mott gave me the vaguest request so far. This is what he gave me to go on:

My beautiful girlfriend's name is Steph. We have been living together for 10 years. She is a music teacher. Her band is called Grey Skies. I would very much love for you to work your lyrical magic with these very few and ill-defined semi-musical variables as the Guide.

I emailed back asking if he wanted to clarify any of it and he said "no". I asked if he wanted Steph actually in the painting and he said "not necessarily".

This leaves things incredibly open. Obviously, music is a major theme in both of their lives. Leon told me he plays in a Dead Kennedys cover band (really, there is such a thing) called The Suede Denims and gives music lessons. So, it has to be musically inspired.

When visual artists try to express music, usually one of two things happen. Either they make a literal image of a performance or a it is bunch of swirling colors and floating cubes. I didn't care much for either of these options.

I decided to approach this like a game that my wife, Beth, and I used to play when people came over. Everyone would lie flat on their backs and close their eyes. I would drop the needle on one of my many old instrumental albums (it could be anything from Billy Strange "Plays the Hits" to Sun Ra and the Myth Science 2000 Arkestra) and we would let the sounds condense as images in our heads. Then, when ready, each of us would sit up and draw. When the song was over everyone presents what they have. (I guess it's not really a game because there is no winning).

Luckily, Leon provided me with a link to a page where I can stream some songs from Grey Skies. I put on headphones, picked a random song, laid down and closed my eyes. The first image that came was of inch worms limping across a branch. When the lyrics began, the worms and branch became an electrical wire. (It turns out the song I picked was called "Bend in the Wire"). The sky was, of course, grey. A bent wire means trouble, sparks. An airplane is flying by, but is it involved. I drew and used this as my preliminary sketch for the painting.

I painted the electrical mess from life. We have a similar scene outside of our bedroom window (minus the bending and sparks). I decided to edit out the apartment buildings and the YMCA across the alley to make it more sparse and dramatic.

I listened to the songs the whole time I painted and got to really like them.

Here is the link Leon gave me so you can listen for yourself:

www.myspace.com/greyskiesmpls

Please click on it and try this drawing exercise. If you do, email me an image of what you drew. I'd love to see it!