studio index: Right now in the studio

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Right now in the studio

I have a number of studio goals this summer--one being a re-opening of THIS space, which for a few years was a helpful record of painting ideas. And then I had a baby.

But somehow that baby is nearly two, and I think I am finally regaining my equilibrium on a lot of levels.

So to re-begin, I'm posting some pictures of the studio today.

Some of the things I am looking at include the Byzantine mosaics at Santa Prassede in Rome--which I saw last summer--and the mosaics in Ravenna (which I hope to visit next summer....). The notion of building an image piece by piece, shape by shape--one shape pushed up next to another--is a potent visual and conceptual idea for me. Underlying the idea is the possibility that such building relationships could, in theory, continue on forever...bit by bit, piece by piece, slowly, slowly. Simple relationships that become complex by virtue of infinite accumulation are the base off of which I jump these days.

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Notes

Within an ephemeral present, we return through memory to things, places, and events in the past in order to find purpose and direction in our lives. Meaningful time is elliptical time.
Vigen Guroian

I have concluded that the whole misfortune of men comes from a single thing, and that is their inability to remain at rest in a room.

Blaise Pascal

May your imagination know the grace of perfect danger.

John O'Donohue

The amount of life I can put through my eyes is the amount I can see.

Ivan Albright

When I painted a chair recently, I noticed that I put the paint on indifferently, smoothly but without particular attention. The results were satisfactory but not in any sense beautiful. Does the attention in itself with which paint is applied in art actually change the effect of the paint? Does the kind of consciousness with which we act determine the quality of our actions? It would follow, if this were true that the higher the degree of consciousness, the higher the quality of art. I think it likely. Training in art is, then, a demand that students increase the consciousness with which they employ techniques that are, in themselves, ordinary.

Anne Truitt, Daybook

It was suggested to me that I would want to preface this reading tonight with a short statement about my philosophy of writing. Of course I don't want to do anything of the kind. My approach to literary problems is very much like the one Dr. Johnson's blind housekeeper used when she poured tea for him. She put her finger inside the cup.

Flannery O'Connor