more amsterdam...

the continuation of glazing

Here shows the ongoing work with the awnings image! This one is clickable, so to provide a larger view as well...

h20

after second major water change

Thursday came and instead of their water being clear, it was thoroughly cloudy again, and Tres was showing signs of "brown blood" from the overabundance of bacteria and their attendant nitrates. Aigghh!!! So, Friday morning I had to change out a great deal of the water again, and more salt. (This time I dissolved the salt first). The photo above shows them later, in the evening after the change-out. Sullen, just lurking on the bottom, mirrored in their misery. I was really worried that it would continually get worse. I removed the plastic plants, salted and scrubbed them, but decided to leave them out for now. I also added opaque black foil to the sides of the tank to prevent sunlight coming in as much as possible.


much better!

However! Saturday morning arrived with still-clear (95% clear anyway) and happy fishes! Brown blood gone! Begging for food and swimming around like freaks! Still are today. They won't even slow down long enough for a clear photo. *whew!* Probably one more (smaller) water change-out today, to keep them safe from evil bacteria.

underpainting

Above is a sneak peak at the new canvas in progress; it's quite a bit larger than the other Amsterdam pieces (30" x 40"), and it takes considerably longer to even get down washes for a base. This is just a faint beginning. I haven't worked on a canvas this size since the grotesques, and- damn!- that was several years ago. This initial phase of underpainting was completed last evening, amid other pursuits; Kim was over for an art night, and we worked on ideas for her web site as well.

And, below, a nice little portrait of Nancy. She came here to stay while TL and Deb were out west on vacation. She was a delightful house guest, and it was nice to have someone to talk to in the kitchen! I'd gotten rather used to her being there, and then *poof* she was gone again. That little dragon ate a lot of crickets.


Nancy, my house guest from earlier this month

In other news (a post script) the fishes' water has nearly all cleared up, after doing serious water replacement twice in as many days. I also learned (after further investigation) that (1) some types of bacteria overload can be bad, and (2) I have been severely remiss in salt reaplcement for several months! Luckily, salt is one of the treatments for bacteria, so two birds and all that. Both fishes are looking very happy at the moment-- even Tres, who'd been sitting glumly on the bottom of the tank for a few days. :)

heat index

They're saying today will be a scorcher. I felt it coming on last evening, and so closed off the front room and started up the AC; it has remained quite cool (though i turned it off this morning), as I haven't opened the windows to let in warmer air from without!

The past couple of weeks have been optimum sleeping weather, though- cool at night with only a window open. Between that, and my new mattress (very basic, mind you but a vast improvement over the decade-old futon mattress I'd been using), I find I've been hitting snooze a lot lately! Additionally, of late I have a seemingly bottomless well of strange dreams that are particularly active in those 10-minute chunks of sleep between the alarms. I wish I was still in the habit of writing upon wakening, as some of them have been pretty interesting (in that logic-has-no-place-here sort of way).

The fishes' water is still somewhat cloudy, as I've been (1) waiting for the Ph to drop a bit in hope that that will kill off some of the rampant bacteria, and (2) well, lazy. But the web link assured me that this bacteria is not harmful. I presume it is precisely the sort that causes ponds to go all hazy and murky in warm weather, in which case those two should feel quite at home. But, to be honest, they don't seem pleased. I will exchange a large amount of water today.

reading

It's Saturday noon, and I have been reading a friend's blog. I have read a few in the past couple of months, and I am always so impressed with people who get very personal in their writing. With details. The whole blog phenomenon is strange, and I still am not quite sure of the point (perhaps part of it is just the feeling of being connected somehow to a larger world?). But still in awe of the ones who truly share. I am just such an editor; even when I feel as though I have typed something personal, I realize later how obscure and abstract my entries are (unless about the fishes or politics). I barely allude to some of the most life-altering experiences!
But, this is a public experiment after all, and those who need to know, do.

Meantime, I am an excited geek- a new book arrived, gotten with my IgoUgo gift certificate! The Children of Hurin, another posthumously-published work by Tolkien, at long last put into cohesive form by his diligent son. I must finish current novel first, but am very much looking forward to reading this. Whoo hoo!

challenges, opportunities.

I never did expound upon that statement, begun in a previous post this day.
(technically yesterday)

The situation in which I find myself is one of both challenge and (hopefully) opportunity, as summer hits.
You see, I recently learned of [somewhat dire] financial troubles of one of my clients; a situation leaving me (and several trusted colleagues) somewhat bereft for the moment. But-- it is summer after all, and summer is the bane of so many freelancers; so I have decided to take it in stride. Decided, consciously, to not panic. I never panic! (That has proved, over the years, to be both a strength and a weakness.)

The flip side of this untimely (or timely?) development, is that it has (1) come at the exact time during which I'm finally taking my future as a "fine artist" (I shouldn't use quotes) seriously, and (2) is, bizarrely, serendipitously, allowing me to actually do so.

All that in mind, I have been using my daytime- normally working hours- to CREATE! To begin, work on, and in fact actually finish many projects, in a way I have only allowed myself to imagine heretofor.

* yay for that! *

new enterprise...

This is one of my new plans. Living in Park Slope, there certainly must be a number of residents in search of interior augmentation, but perhaps not having the time nor experience to do such things. I have had the time and opportunity to play with spaces, having lived in many apartments during my time in NY-- moreover, (and importantly) it is something I enjoy. So, we shall see what sort of response these little fliers bring. (note: I have left off the phone number, as this is a local experiment; a project that really only makes sense on a local basis. However, I am not opposed to travel-for-work! :) )

forms & structures

challenges, and opportunities.

The fishes' tank water is cloudy, and has been so for a couple of weeks now. Today it appears to be a little better, but I have yet to unravel the mystery of what's causing it.

Lately viewing:
BBC Brain Story documentary series
PBS Guns, Germs and Steel

Lately reading:
The Alientist, by Caleb Carr
The Dance of Time, by Michael Judge
A Guide to Heraldry, by Ottfried Neubecker

For a group show in Chelsea in which I will be exhibiting some small paintings, I have decided upon a series of saint Icons, after the manner of the Middle Ages (but more in the style of my Grotesques).

bleeaaaahhh!

It is never anything but disturbing to spy vermin in one's abode; it feels like an intrusion, shaves a bit of the comfort off of one's comfort zone. Sometimes, makes one's skin crawl, awakens the heebie-jeebies. Ugh! i just had an unfortunate run-in with the largest cockroach I've seen in years, save those night crawler types that you see on the street in this town. And he was lying on his back, legs akimbo, only a few inches from my stove. Bleeaarghh!

This damn bug is no less than 1.75" long of body , with another 2 or 3" of antennae. As I cautiously approached with a flat of cardboard (mistakenly presuming him to be not only prone, but also dead), the bugger's limbs started to twitch and flail (more garbled sounds of disgust from me).

Now, on a quick side note, I have two heavy boxes of mis-printed matter sitting on my kitchen table; 1000 brochures doomed only to be recycled, as I wait for the correctly-printed brochures to be sent. Their presence causes some dismay at the sheer wastefulness, and at poor service on the part of the printers (in this instance) they represent. But! getting back to the uninvited guest causing me even more dismay...

I quickly realized what I must do. I grabbed one of the boxes and swiftly dropped it on top of the wretched thing, hopefully ending its struggle, and most assuredly easing my mind that this land-lubbing crustacean would have no further explorations in my kitchen. (Though I suspected that a beast of that size might come in handy to carry out the recycling, if only it were trainable, surely it wouldn't be able to lift 8 pounds of paper off its buggy abdomen...)

Eventually, I will have to remove the box and clean up whatever carnage is beneath it. (Yet more sounds of disgust emanate). On a more positive note, however, I finally found a use for those damn brochures.

Impromptu projects

Kim came over to drop off the menu prints for Bonnie's last evening, and we wound up having a very spur of the moment art night: we got out all sorts of paper, glue, paint, you name it. Then we chose a book from the shelf (Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities), chose a line of text at random; a passage regarding "Destruction", which became out point of departure,. We set a clock for about 90 minutes of time, and made some art! Below is a (rather poor) photo of the results!


two collages: mine (left) and Kim's (right)

It was really great; a reminder of how exciting process can be, and that so many ideas come not by thinking so much as by being in it. And of course, as Bob Ross taught us, "happy accidents".

another dream of war

Last night: dreams of ruthlessness in war; ancient; a battle in which no compromise was allowed and a perfectionist general lost his every soldier in an ever-widening stain which turned the ground sour and nauseating. When it was finished, he still stood, but broken and stripped of his humanity. His actions had contradicted the very ideals which had set him on his path, and he wept. Not for himself, but for the landscape of carnage; for all who had been lost on his orders, by his hubris. For the taint and the tarnish on ideals that could not be restored to bright and shining. He didn't move. In the end, all of his decisions proved senseless; the weight of emptiness all around him rooted him to the soil, still hemorrhaging slow pools of regret.

The dream woke me and it was still dead of night (and I am rarely wakened by dreams, even the nightmare kind). This one, though- the vantage point was abstract- I was learning this battle as history, yet it spread before my eyes like a living diorama in the dream, and I could smell the sourness and it hurt, and the general, who was representative of some Roman written as glorious, lost his mythological status. It felt like the stain had continued to spread right up through centuries, and I lost something as well, like the way fairy tales set you up for a fall, which is Life, and you realize in the most visceral way that death in war is always ignoble for the mere fact that it is avoidable-- the way of avoidance simply has yet to be soundly threaded from abstraction, as there's no budget for it; no economic motive.

Time.

It has been a swift spring, with tumultuous weather to match the tumults of Time; of Getting Older; of Uncertainty, Questions Needing Answers, and of Procrastination; of Plans waiting to become Plans of Action.
Well, something like that, anyway.

Yes, it's all true. Each passing year passes faster than the last. Time is patient and cunning. Time may be infinite in the abstract, but is doled out in indeterminate, finite chunks, and it can get scary if you think about it too much. It's one thing to know this as a theory, to be aware of in some vague way. But there comes a time when it begins to have weight, where one actually begins to believe it.

Okay, back to work for now. Perhaps I will revisit this at another time...

not wandering, just LOST

wandering lost

I feel utterly uninspired; that is, I have no ideas. No idea what to create- that sounds ridiculous, but it's true. I fear that all these many years of designing in front of this screen-- of having got used to working on projects for which there was a purpose, something specific to communicate-- have rendered me crippled as an artist.
Wow. That sounds very dramatic.
I am accustomed to knowing what needs to be done, then doing it. And having deadlines, set by others. In short, I've grown accustomed to creating for others' purposes. Now, when I find myself desiring so much to creeate an image for the joy of creating an image, I feel utterly at a loss. I wish to apply discipline to this matter, but there's that feeling that ART isn't something I should have to push myself to do-- a misconception, I realize, but still.

It is driving me mental.
The good news is, eventually it will break. Or I will-- either way the funk will end.
My plan is to end it on my terms.