Backyard landscape

Our backyard has been going through some major upheaval lately. We're in the process of laying down a new patio, which has included: digging and cutting through some major root systems, moving dirt, bringing in sand, rock and pavers, and positioning new plants throughout the yard. In addition to that, I just completed a tree house for the kids, which was very satisfying, but brutal work in this summer heat. This seemed like a subject matter to make some art about..

I had initially started a small painting of the backyard, which I worked on for a few days.  As I was painting, however, I started focusing more on the various stacks of pavers, tools, and trees scattered around the yard. It seemed like something that would be better captured with drawing rather than painting...mostly because the forms kept changing from day to day, as the workers moved the bricks and tools around.  I needed to finish these quickly, with the backyard being in such a state of flux. I found working on these so exciting, mostly because the arrangement of the piles and forms that I was drawing were out of my control; their organization depended solely on what state the jobsite was left at the end of the day. Each day I was offered a new configuration of the space which I could then draw later that night.

I started all of these at dusk, working on them for about an hour before the sunset, then returning in the early morning, just after dawn, to work for a few more hours. It was a strange sensation to draw with the fading light and then resuming the next day...kind of like very slowly squinting at what was in front of me, with the reverse in the morning.  For now, I've found this the best time to work because it's way too hot at any other time of day, and I avoid the shifting shadows caused by the light coming through the trees.

There's something analogous happening with the construction of the drawing and the construction of the landscape, too. Site lines and level lines are being employed to mark off the space, patterns are being 'drawn' in the ground with the pavers, and materials are being pushed around on the surface of a plane.  The methodical nature of the process is very similar to the construction of a drawing...I guess that's why I find building things so wonderful to watch and do. I also enjoy framing the contrast of the geometric and organic forms: trees sitting in containers, brick edges meeting sand, bark patterns set against lumber.

I'll be leaving for our annual vacation to Asheville next week, where I hope to do some small paintings. For now, these drawings seem just what I needed to document this window in time. They'll probably be finished with the work by the time I get back (hopefully) and I can resume with some more paintings of our house.

A New Home (continued)

Charcoal on paper-22" x 30"

Here are few more drawings that I've been doing of our new house. Not much to say about these...just trying to keep my eyes and hand active while I'm taking a break from painting. My time has been more limited this summer due to the adjustment from our move and the kids being out of school. I find myself dealing with the annoyances of a new home and a big move: researching termite bonds, buying a second car, numerous visits to the DMV, etc. I did get a great, out of print monograph on Fairfield Porter by John Spike, which I've been pouring over almost every night. (which is probably very obvious from these drawings) I miss the paint but am having fun with these....enjoy!

pencil/sketchbook

pencil/sketchbook

pencil/sketchbook

pencil/sketchbook

pencil/sketchbook

Charcoal on paper- 22" x 30"

A New Home

charcoal on paper, 22" x 30"

     So we're starting to settle in down here in Charleston...the boxes are disappearing and we're finding our way around...I mostly feel like I'm on vacation, with lots of visits to the beach and eating lots of seafood. The home we bought is truly stunning: designed and built for efficiency, it's beauty and craftsmanship amaze me. It seems like a logical place for me to start...a stepping stone back into my art. I'm consciously beginning this new chapter with drawings, similar to the ones I was doing when I left Brooklyn. I think it's here that I can search and find my bearings...a space to find my place.

pencil drawing from sketchbook

      Our house is newly built (2008) and the previous owners had barely lived in it. It's as close to a blank slate as can be, as opposed to our house in Brooklyn, where I literally demoed and stripped everything back and then rebuilt it. Almost every square inch of it I knew like the back of my hand: from behind the walls, where the wires and the pipes were, to how many layers of plaster were on the walls. I figure that I'll 'work' my way out from this space, exploring the landscape of our family and our re-location.

pencil drawing from sketchbook

     I've mostly started with pencil drawings in my sketch-book, the next step being larger charcoal versions. This new house reminds me of a quote I read by one of my favorite artists, Antonio Lopez Garcia, commenting on working in his new studio:

    "The building was new and it fascinated me. The sensation of standing before something new, surrounded by things that were totally new and without history, coincided with a period in my own life in which I wanted to break with the past. The conditions were perfect for me to undertake this project. For about five or six years I focused on depicting this space, over which I had complete control. The loneliness, the silence, the emptiness of the walls, the absence of other people's experiences and memories-it was all new to me...It was also practical for my way of working: I could leave my things as they lay and find them in exactly the same place from one day to the next, which allowed me to start each day in a spirit of calm."

     The artists I admire most tend to be the ones that use their everyday life and experiences as the subject matter for their art. Antonio Lopez-Garcia, Fairfield Porter, Alberto Giacometti, and Pierre Bonnard were all searching for that universal experience with Truth in the mundane and commonplace. We'll see where all this leads...

pencil drawing from sketchbook

last drawings of Brooklyn

Our Lady's Field (with Don's house)

      So over the past few weeks, after putting away the paints and the French easel, I've decided to focus on doing a series of drawings on paper, in charcoal. I figured for this last series, I would choose subjects that are familiar and close to me, the Brooklyn neighborhood where I have lived for the past 15 years, Windsor Terrace.

Flooded path in Prospect Park

     There's something about the act of drawing which brings me back to the essentials: line, shadow, form, and mark-making. I decided that I would do drawings of things that I see in my everyday life: the intersection where I go to get groceries and coffee, the path I walk along to take my kids to the playground, and the ball-field I pass to get back to my house. All of these were done on 22" x 30" paper, and executed with charcoal powder and charcoal pencil. Some of them were done in 'one shot'; that is, in about a 2-3 hour session, on site, with a portable easel. Others required more time, so I worked on them over several days, usually in 2 hour stints.

16th Street and Prospect Park West (NW corner)

     One of the things that I love most about working from life, is this sense of being totally in the moment. Out there on the street, particularly at a busy intersection, you're just one element among thousands amidst the flux of life. At times, the honking cars, trucks blocking your view, passers-by stopping to look and ask questions, become a distraction and hinderance to the work, but they are also part of it's 'life-force', an experience I'm trying to capture.  This becomes particularly more heightened with drawing, rather than painting...probably because drawing is a simpler and more immediate act. There is a general sense of frenetic energy on the streets of Brooklyn which somehow seeps into the work.

16th Street and Prospect Park West (SW corner)

     Someone stopped to ask me why I just don't take a photo and draw it in my studio. The short answer to that: because I can't hear the birds chirping in my studio or observe the light sliding across the sidewalk. Being 'in the moment' is just as important to me as 'making a picture'. There is also a sense of continuity with my life that becomes apparent to me in these drawings: I'd see friends on the street that I knew, who didn't know my art, and were just floored that I was out there doing pictures of regular everyday Brooklyn. All sorts of people became my audience: the old lady on her way back to the assisted-living center down the street, the guy who works at the bagel shop around the corner, a local panhandler and neighborhood drunkard, the parent of a fellow student at my son's school. Somehow, the experience of being on site and in the mix of urban life, feeds the life of the drawing. With our move less than 2 weeks away, I feel time slipping away....like I should have been doing this work years ago. There are not enough days left to do all the drawings I want to do. Somehow, that makes them all the more vital, necessary and exciting...yet also, bittersweet and sad.

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So long Red Hook

   Over the years, I've done a number of paintings in Red Hook, the waterfront port area of Brooklyn, close to my studio in nearby Gowanus. It's such an amazing place, with cobblestone streets, vast harbor views and an aging lot of brick warehouse buildings. It has the feeling of what I think New York must have been like a hundred years ago.

   I finished these 2 paintings today. I've had them in the studio for a awhile, where I'd pull them out, noodle around with them, and then turn them around again to face the wall for awhile. The big building featured in both, is an old grain terminal building, a huge massive structure which you can see from different spots along the Gowanus/Red Hook area. It's vacant now, and as far as I can tell, is not being used for anything. There's a concrete company operating next to it, and I'm sure it's only a matter of time before it's dismantled, leaving a void in the landscape.

  These will probably be the last paintings I do of Brooklyn, with our move to Charleston less than a month away. I might do a few more drawings of the neighborhood, but then it will be time to pack up the studio and collect myself for the move. I'm already planning a series of drawings of our new house, and I'm eager to jump in and explore new sites to paint in Charleston.  Stay tuned for info on some exhibitions I'll be participating in here in NY soon...
  

Kentile Floors (continued...)

14" x 21"

I finished 2 more paintings with the "Kentile Floors" sign. The first one is from my studio roof, where I'm able to get directly across from it, looking down slightly on the opposite roof. The other is from the same spot where I did some other paintings, looking at the sign from the back, a greater distance away. I like the idea of painting the letters in reverse...I'm going to try and search out more spots where I can see this.

The sign is such a landmark in the area...something people recognize and respond to. I've painted it so many times, and each time I do, I curse myself because all those tiny rods of the scaffolding are so intricate and difficult to paint. There's something about it that keeps bringing me back, though. It acts like a huge sun dial, casting long shadows on the roof while the chroma of the red letters fluctuates with the passing light.

Maybe because this winter has been so long and gloomy, but I've become really enamored with the light this March. The sun is still very low in the sky, which is causing these great long violet shadows, but it is also very bright and crisp.  Most of these recent paintings have been 'quick' ones....4-5 hours at the most. (Trying to get as much done of Brooklyn as I can before the move)

12" x 18"