New York Blues

I drove up to New York yesterday with my good friend and fellow artist Nancy Bea Miller to deliver new paintings to the Sherry French gallery. All the way up to New York we talked about the current economic situation, and the conversation continued with Sherry. It's not a great time for artists or their dealers either. The signs of economic disaster were also very evident when we drove uptown to see the Peter Poskas III show at Hirschl & Adler Gallery. Madison Avenue was eerily quiet on a sunny afternoon.  A disconsolate looking sales girl stared out at the street from Dior. There were no groups of loud Russian tourists clutching shopping bags.   There were lots of parking spaces on Madison Avenue. It was very strange. 

The Poskas show was a real pleasure. The paintings were quite good, and it was enjoyable to see his take on places where Nancy Bea and I had also painted. One real stand out for me was the painting above, "Tomatoes and Olive Oil". Even digital reproduction seen on a good monitor doesn't do justice to the luminosity Poskas achieved in this painting. The slices of tomato shimmered in a warm saturated glow and the bread seemed lit from within and still warm from the oven. Really beautiful.

New Year, New Work

It has been a while since I posted. I get distracted, I guess. And the holidays, as enjoyable as they are, break up the work flow. I have to bring three new pieces up to the gallery on Thursday. Today I went in to the studio to varnish two of them and start framing. I had the unwelcome experience of looking at one of them and feeling I needed to repaint areas. Aaargh! So much for the varnishing. I reworked part of that painting and it will have to go up to New York "naked". I tend to paint in thin semi-transparent layers. This can give a very effective glow as the light travels through the paint layers and back to the viewer. The problem is that this technique doesn't look its best until that last completely transparent layer of varnish is added. 

I am satisfied with this painting, "Japanese Iris", which is the result of a visit to a friend's country place last June. There was so much there to paint, but I found myself concentrating on the pond and these irises in full exuberant bloom. They called out to have a haiku written about them, or at least a memory painted.