39 panels October 2016

I've just spent the last three days prepping panels, 39 all told.  Most are panels that had images on them from before that weren't good enough to "live".  I cover them with drywall mud to make the surfaces smooth and to bury the previous paintings, although with most, traces are left, which I like. Once they dry, I sand them with a small hand sander, which as busy work, is pretty fantastic.  Who doesn't like sanding?  So many beautiful results, so quickly, with so little effort.

Now I'm faced with the 39 panels, pretending to lie quietly, complacently.  But I know that once I start painting, they will take on a life of their own and I will be but a servant, a slave to their whims, demanding that they will be what they want to be.  And, as finished paintings, they will insist that I find the perfect mates for them--bits of photos, collaged paper, more paint, transferred images, plain and extraordinary papers(the list goes on and on)-- that will make them whole and complete.  It's terrifying.  The responsibility, the pressure--what have I done?

Horse with Rain 2016

Since the spring, I have been working with my older black and white photographs, trying to make strong images that have something more to them than just putting a transparent photo onto a painted ground.  It's been difficult, not just because of technical problems, but because I'm not sure how to see these images.  They are new to me, quieter and more minimal than my older pieces, truer to the photograph than ever before.

Tired Angel 2000

I recently ran into an old friend, Bruce Davis, at an opening and we reminisced about the series of photographs that I had taken of him in 1999. He asked if I would send him some of those images so he could use them for his profile image on Facebook. I happily agreed, then forgot all about it as so often happens now with my not functioning quite as well as it used to older brain.  Then, while sitting and working on my computer today, this image cycled in as my screen saver:  Bruce, mirrored sunglasses in place, a true Contemporary Angel--exhausted and burdened with wings so heavy and so weighty that he can barely stand, worn out from the never ending job of just trying to do his job.

Woman with Her Own Coyote 2015

I've written in this blog before about my love/hate relationship with coyotes, my main issue being that I am the owner of a small, intense, rat terrier who thinks he can, with no assistance from anyone, take down and kill any coyote that crosses his path.  This, of course, is felonious.  He is clearly forgetting the time he was caught, carried, and then dropped by a coyote when the coyote heard my husband's shouts. 

My love relationship with coyotes is based on the fact that they are wild, smart as hell, incredibly athletic, and just all around wonderful, surviving, like crows, by co-existing with their horrible neighbors, us humans.   I like to think this coyote and I share some things in common: we both have the same expressions--wily, knowing, and calm; we are both pragmatic and sensible creatures; we both like to watch more than to be watched; and we both wear Dansko clogs on our shapely, muscular legs.

Man with an Ax 1998

I've spent the last several weeks scanning many of my old black and white negatives and putting them into my computer.  It's been a long and interesting journey, seeing so many images from my past, and at the same time trying to figure out just which photos I should take the time and energy to convert to digital--there are thousands of negatives to choose from.  Almost all of my photographs were taken with the idea of doing something more to them, none were ever shown "as is". What interests me now, in going through them, is what I was trying, unknowingly, to capture.

I've found three recurrent themes that run through these photographs: the first reflects a kind of awkwardness, that moment when things are just that much out of kilter, wrong but not drastically so;  the second is a sense of ominousness; and the third is, often times, one of sadness or worry.  There are sweet images, ones of friends or family or pets, but they tend to be the minority, and not the ones I used.  What I'm seeing now is that the altered, painted image distilled what the original photo was about and boosted it, underscoring the awkwardness or the fear or the loneliness.

I have a vague idea that is formulating about how to use these photographs once again, but I am and am not the person I was 20-30 years ago. This may be the start of a new visual journey for me, or it may be no more then looking back through the black and white scrap book of my life.

Arab Show 1979

I've spent the last week scanning many of my old black and white negatives into my computer.  It's been wonderful--taking a long and extensive trip into my fairly distant past(I started with my first camera when I was nine and stopped shooting film in 2004 ).  A good number of my negatives are of the large horse events in and around Phoenix in the late 70's and early 80's.  Many of the horse people, especially the Arab and gaited horse people, have a love of pretense and and kind of sleaziness that was intensely attractive to me.

I took this photograph and then painted with gouache over it. I subsequently gave the painted photo to my dealer as a gift, and she turned around and sold it soon after.  I was hurt by her selling it so promptly. Of course, she might have just needed the money and/or not liked the image.  I had kept no record of it, but I remember that I had loved the painting and had assumed she would do the same.

Nick Teasing 1981

In the fuzzy reaches of my memory, sometime around the age of 8-9, I can remember my mother and father getting a divorce. My next memories are of Nick appearing in our lives.  An artist, Greek, emotional, a great cook, and just generally fun to be with, he took our little family's stilted identity and shook it hard.  There were emotional outbursts, there were wild rides in our 49 chevy pickup truck through the pinon trees, and there were dinners filled with good food and many different friends, and lots and lots of laughter.  He and my mother married and he remained my stepfather for the next 20 years until he and my mother divorced, bitterly.

Nick is now 88 and living in assisted living.  His mind is going fast, on a faster downhill slide than his body, which is still fairly healthy.  We had great hopes for him in assisted living, a lovely place full of activities and active, interesting older people.  But this has not happened.  He is constantly in hot water with the establishment:  sunbathing in his underpants in the large central courtyard, letting his little dog Koukla loose to poop and go after other dogs(that are on leashes), then forgetting and leaving her outside to roam and upset people.  He gets lost on a regular basis, forgets his walker, and has alienated many of the female residents by his liberal use of  the word  "fuck".  Koukla has been banned, and he is heartbroken.  Cracks are beginning to appear between family members working to figure out what is best as we inch toward the possibility of Nick being booted out of his current home. 

I emailed a friend whose ex-husband, a victim of Alzheimer's,  died recently to ask her about his last accommodations, a place called the Retreat, here in Albuquerque.  Her response was positive, but what she said at the end of her email is what stayed with me the most , "This whole process is so hard and so sad".  And she is so right.