Mr. Mick's Sabbatical

Hung

2011-01-24T14:31:00.000-08:00

Exhibition at MacRostie Art Center, January 2011.

Framed

2010-06-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

The beginning of this record illustrates the construction of stretched canvasses. I had anticipated the gallery wrapped canvasses would preclude the need for frames. After a few aborted attempts at painting on canvas I determined the scale and surface wasn't going to work. By "work" I mean: meet my sense of aesthetic rightness in process and result. The sense of what is right changes over time--sometimes in the course of a single painting.

Early in the process I determined to follow that sense of rightness regardless of what direction it lead. That resulted in a body of work on paper with a severely limited palette that would require framing under glass.

I don't have the temperament to be a framer. I don't have the resources to hire one. One of the ironies of my career is the amount of time I spend framing.

I have spent the last several weeks cutting mats, mounting paintings, cutting, cleaning and installing glass, sweeping up shards, and installing hanging hardware.

32 down, 8 to go.

Uprooted

2010-04-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

Scape V

2010-04-08T14:45:00.000-07:00

MM 5

2010-04-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

Scape IV

2010-04-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Flat Allis

2010-03-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

Scape II

2010-03-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

Oliver Again

2010-03-23T19:26:00.000-07:00

Cat III

2010-03-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

Tree House

2010-03-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

Farmall A

2010-03-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

Best Crawler

2010-03-16T09:27:00.000-07:00

Allis-Chalmers II

2010-03-12T14:19:00.001-08:00

River Road

2010-03-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

MM4

2010-03-08T07:23:00.000-08:00

JD2

2010-03-03T10:26:00.001-08:00

MM3

2010-03-02T10:32:00.000-08:00

JD

2010-02-24T14:36:00.000-08:00

Minneapolis-Moline, again.

2010-02-15T11:57:00.001-08:00

Cat 22

2010-02-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

St. John (Deere)

2010-01-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

Mindy's Grandpa's Tractor

2010-01-20T18:23:00.000-08:00

McCormick-Deering

2010-01-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

Oliver Sepia

2010-01-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Farmall Color

2010-01-13T14:33:00.000-08:00

Cat

2010-01-05T18:54:00.000-08:00

Farmall

2009-12-31T14:23:00.000-08:00

The Finished Product

2009-12-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

The finished book is available at two sites.

The Blurb version is 6x6 inches, hardcover with a printed dust jacket.

The one at viovio is 8.5 inches square and available in perfect bound (softcover), and two imagewrap hardcover bindings.

After researching most of the online publishing services and experimenting with their software I settled on these two for the features and services they offered. I designed the Blurb version using their downloaded BookSmart software and used Adobe Indesign to compose the viovio version. I prefer the binding of the smaller Blurb version, but the printing of the illustrations is superior in the larger viovio book.

Life is full of compromises.

Allis-Chalmers

2009-12-18T06:56:00.000-08:00

J.I. Case

2009-12-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

John Deere

2009-12-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

Ford

2009-12-14T07:55:00.001-08:00

Case

2009-12-09T12:03:00.000-08:00

Gouache on Rives BFK
6 x 8 inches

Oliver

2009-12-07T12:24:00.001-08:00

Minneapolis-Moline

2009-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

4x4 inches
Gouache on Rives BFK

A Little Something for the Dust Jacket

2009-12-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Daughters

2009-11-27T08:12:00.000-08:00

Di Frijoles

2009-11-06T10:04:00.000-08:00

Dummies!

2009-10-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

...in which a dummy is sheets folded or made up to show the size, shape, form, sequence, and/or general style of a contemplated piece of printing.

With only one or two illustrations left to complete I spent the last few days designing the book. Working without an editor, art director, or hopes of a publisher I'm free to go about this business any way I want.

I prefer actual reality to virtual reality, so started with actual paper and tape. There's something about nudging real things and in holding a product in the hands that's satisfying. The unsightly blue tape is fast and easy to reposition. There is more to life than keystrokes and mouse clicks. As Max Frisch said: Technology is the knack of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.

Only after some actual physical manipulation did I start slogging my way up the learning curve of unfamiliar design software.

Haircut

2009-10-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

Compadres Remix

2009-10-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

Birthdays

2009-10-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Scape Scrap

2009-10-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

In which scrap means photographic reference.

Compadres

2009-10-13T13:16:00.001-07:00

Yet Another Variation

2009-10-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Ointment

2009-10-06T15:43:00.000-07:00

Leviathan...sort of

2009-10-01T13:30:00.000-07:00

Mrs.

2009-09-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Fishing Horizontal

2009-09-28T10:00:00.000-07:00

After looking at it for a while I decided it needed more horizontal space.

Fishing

2009-09-28T09:30:00.000-07:00

Cow Scrap

2009-09-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

In which scrap refers to photographic reference. I see these cows just laying around every time I drive by the Swan River truck stop. I thought it was time they earned their keep.

Inspiration

2009-09-26T12:20:00.000-07:00

Nearly twenty years ago while watching a kitschy presentation of religious music and images I was impressed by the jarring effect of seeing mediocre images in the context of masterworks. I determined that one way to objectively see the relative value of your own work would be to see it mixed in with work you knew was good. On occasion I have dropped slides of my own work into a sequence of paintings I admired--to mixed results.

At the risk of creating just such a jarring experience I show some of the paintings, seen in a visit to New York, that have inspired me in the past. One of the results of the experience was a reinforcement of something I often tell my students: "If it was easy, anybody could do it."

Much has been made of Vermeer's reliance on optical devices, such as the camera lucida, to produce his paintings. I think it's like an athlete taking performance enhancing drugs. Not many people can hit a major league fastball no matter how many steroids they take. Vermeer hits home runs.

My favorite painting. It does everything a painting can do--represent, symbolize, narrate, design, etc. and does it well. It's a jewel.

When I first saw this image as a child I was enchanted by the light from the windows falling on the ground. You can't do that with a yellow crayon.

Synesthesia is a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. This doesn't fit the neurological definition, but it's a painting you feel with your eyes.

Big yellow negative shapes.

Holbein has always been a hero. I really admired these little portraits.

Sheeler also used optical devices. No one complained.

This is a very small section from a huge painting of the Andes. You can find dozens of such "pictures within a picture" in Church's work.

Rembrandt portraits often have more personality and presence than actual people you meet.

Variation

2009-09-05T16:45:00.001-07:00

Job

2009-09-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Bowie Knife (revised)

2009-09-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Harrier is scarier?

Bowie Knife

2009-09-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

Desperado

2009-09-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

Moo

2009-08-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

Baa

2009-08-28T09:26:00.000-07:00

Achin' Heart

2009-08-26T17:41:00.000-07:00

A Little Experiment

2009-08-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Boss With Globe

2009-08-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Twister

2009-08-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Work in Progress

2009-08-17T14:33:00.000-07:00

Gouache on primed Rives BFK, 4x4" (approximately)
Five values mixed, center pool of white is a proprietary medium.

Vintage Tractor Scrap

2009-08-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

...in which the term scrap means photographic reference.

Meteorite

2009-08-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Digital Sepia

2009-08-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

Boss Study

2009-08-15T07:07:00.000-07:00

Robbed and Murdered

2009-08-10T13:54:00.000-07:00

Bandit
gouache

Nick & Willy

2009-08-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

Tested

2009-08-01T14:11:00.000-07:00

In the last three years I've produced 600, essentially illustrative, trading card sized paintings. For the first time in thirty years I don't really have an idea what my next paintings will look like. That's a source of some anxiety, but I've begun to think that might make this whole thing a little more interesting. More risky anyway.

Some tentative underpainting.

Torn

2009-08-01T13:58:00.001-07:00

One of the purposes this blog serves is to create contemporaneous documentation that can be used to produce a final report. Another purpose is to reveal some of the "work" that goes into the creative process. We often see the finished product and have no idea how it came to be. The more pedestrian and practical components of the process rightly take a back seat to the flashier parts of the process, but the flashy doesn't happen without the practical. Inspiration and perspiration, etc.

Turning large sheets of primed paper into small sheets.

Written

2009-08-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

The manuscript in question. Slaved over. Cutting and pasting with actual scissors and ~~paste~~ tape.

Studied

2009-07-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

Reconsidered

2009-07-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

I had intended to create the book illustrations using the sepia cartoon style, but recently I've been leaning more toward a more painterly gouache approach. Here are this week's character studies:

Sidetracked

2009-07-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

Those drawings gave rise to a series of trading card sized images that sold on a well-known internet auction site.

Roughed

2009-07-28T16:17:00.000-07:00

Along with painting, my sabbatical project involves illustrating a book. I started the manuscript several years ago and wrestled it into nearly finished form in the last month. I've been drawing character studies and design ideas and pinning them to the wall of the studio.

Stained

2009-07-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

I turned them into square mahogany frames.

Oak Rectangles

2009-07-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

I gathered my 1980s vintage oak rectangular frames and disassembled them.

Racked

2009-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

My stash of old art and frames.

Primed II

2009-07-12T19:30:00.000-07:00

Rives BFK primed with toned gesso. I apply the gesso with a squeegee and sand between coats.

Primed

2009-07-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

The gesso was toned with tubes of leftover acrylic paint, some as old as the original stretchers.

Stretched

2009-07-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Using up scraps of canvas and linen. I knew there was a reason I've been saving all this stuff. My thumbs hurt. Art requires sacrifice.

Stacked

2009-07-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

18 inch squares.

Joined

2009-07-02T14:34:00.001-07:00

Certainly easier, probably cheaper, but I've never been able to bring myself to buy pre-stretched canvas. In Potok's My Name is Asher Lev there's a lovely description of the ritualistic nature of preparing surfaces on which to paint. It has always seemed to me an essential part of the painting process--almost gestational.

Halves

2009-07-02T14:32:00.000-07:00

Joining Pairs

2009-07-02T14:11:00.000-07:00

Pairs joined with a V-nailer. Another time saver, however, I keep thinking it would be easier and probably cheaper to buy pre-stretched canvas.

Mostly Cheap

2009-07-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

The smell coming from the wood as I mitered the lengths reminded me of the time spent initially constructing the frames. Built out of finger jointed 1x2s and quarter round molding I spent hours in the studio gluing and nailing the molding, cutting the pieces with a hand saw and miter box, and assembling the frames with a hammer and nails. This time a little power saw sped up the process considerably.

Cheap or Green

2009-07-02T13:57:00.000-07:00

Naked Stretcher 42 x 52 inches

Stretchers were dismantled.

Green or Cheap

2009-07-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Installation View, Hatton Gallery, Colorado State University 1983

At the end of my thesis exhibition these paintings were crated and shipped to Spokane, Washington where they took up space in my parent's garage for twenty years. I recently removed the paintings from their stretchers and hauled everything to Minnesota.