ARCHIVE-late1978-1979
(drawing, painting, collage)
(drawing, painting, collage)
In October 1976 I exhibited a selection of new paintings and drawings at the Terrain Gallery/NYC. All images were based on structures inherent in drawing; for me it was line and its relationship to color and shape building. Approximately a year later I exhibited new paintings and drawings at the Berkshire Artisans Gallery/Pittsfield, MA.; same themes as the work shown at Terrain Gallery/NYC the year before. Upon viewing the 1977 show at Berkshire Artisans, I became very unhappy with what was going in the paintings. I decided that when this show came down, this program was completed.
Studio - East Calais, Vermont, 1979.
In September 1976 we purchased the house adjacent to us. We were living in it to figure our how to restore it. We received news of Elaine's prenancy around April 1977. What joyous news! At this time nothing had been decided nor begun to the house restore project. Around May of 1977, I set to work deconstructing the house; kitchen, upstairs bedrooms; etc. I needed to construct a new bedroom for the baby off our master bedroom. By August 1977 this first stage of house reconstruction was done. Nathaniel was born in September 1977. I was now a full time house husband.
I returned to studio work in the fall of 1978. The anxiety experienced after viewing the Berkshire Artisans show in summer 1977 (I think, don't really remember the exact dates of this show) had now vanished. A year of diaper changes and feedings (both Nathaniel and I) and ample time to think about what I would do in the painting when I returned to it. I decided that the drawing base for painting, for me, had to be shelved in favor of returning to more basic painting structures; form and color, etc. I had never before explored geometry as a subject for painting. My new focus = geo referenced by AE. I started to work on this program in the fall of 1978; continuing its development through May of 1979.
I should note, that I always took the summer off from painting while I lived in Vermont. Summer in Vermont is absolutely sublime and should be cherished with plenty of outdoor activity and good cheer!
Also Elaine and I decided that Vermont in the middle of nowhere was not a place to bring up a child. After some searching Elaine took a job as head librarian for the Old Saybrook Public Library/CT. We moved to CT in October 1979. I stopped working on geo oriented paintings probably sometime in June 1979.
None of these works have ever been exhibited anywhere. None of them were even prepped for showing. Almost all of the canvases, large and small, were later overpainted (this is what happens to a painter where there is no money available to buy supplies -- paint and repaint is the process). So much of what was done is only available via 35mm color slides. My astigmatism prevented me from accurately focusing the camera; much of my photographing at that time was hit-n-miss. The images presented here were done with a Canon 35mm color slide scanner with all the bells and whistles available to correct everything from dust, scratches, color, and focus. How this machine does this is beyond me. It worked!
Because none of these works were ever slated to be exhibited, none of them were issued titles or numbers. I note the media used and in what combinations. I am not fond of the term mixed media (mm). This doesn't tell me anything of how an artist uses multiple media to make a work. So I tried to remember what combinations of what was used and note this for each piece.
I have ordered the works according to the development moving from the linear to the planar. When I got down to the nitty gritty for working up geometric compositions, I made many small studies on typing paper using pencil and ball point pen. I then decided on a painting size (paper or canvas), then used a pantograph to make enlarged tracings; pounced the tracing ala Renaissance style with powdered graphite; created the paintings. For the smaller watercolors, I pantographed directly onto the watercolor paper, then did the painting. For the large canvases, I created a grid proportional to the study, then enlarged the small study to fit the large painting. For this program I tried to stay within the study parameters. I wanted to experience some controlling in how I worked up a painting from start to finish.
When I left Vermont in October 1979, this program stopped. From Old Saybrook, CT (by the sea) I began an entirely new set of paintings based upon abstractions direct from nature. Scans of this work to come later.
