Curvy is cool

Elliptical bliss! This screenshot came from the NYT months ago and with my apologies to the photographer, whom I don't credit here. It's from an Art Book Fair in Paris if I remember correctly.

But let's be honest, doesn't it look so French!  I cannot add to it, it's just really cool, and so far outside of linear thinking.

The image of the curved table below was also clipped off from somewhere,,,, but alas, I don't remember from where. I'm a huge fan of screenshots and use them all over the place, but because I am so poorly-organised they jitterbug higgledy-piggledy at their own leisure across my laptop and are hard to find when I need them them. What can one do? I do remember though, that it was from an article about Dining Solutions, and I think it was about Mexico. 

Basically, I'm finally at a pretty satisfied place in my life. Today I live in a glorified industrial shed, outfitted like a home but a shed no less. It's funky and crowded with too many paintings but it's home, my own. One thing that makes it really warm is the old wooden floor I built into it, and so it has a graceful feeling to it too. And because I built every bit of it with help from different 'tradies' as they are affectionally called here in Australia. I know every square millimetre of the house.

But I'm here, and today I'm happy because my preference is to "want what I have" in my life instead of always "having what I want". At my age I'm no longer a collector of anything. And yet when I saw this curvy table, I kind of melted and thought to myself; "How very cool". So, despite the fact that I have few dinner parties here in Australia I know that one day I'll have a table like this, made for me.

But honestly, the secret truth is that a successful and intimate dinner has only to do with the host and the guests, not the table nor even the food. Many will no doubt disagree with me, but a great dinner can be made on a cheap metal table, a few cans of sardines, a salad, some wine and sparkling water with some good bread (and cheese). But what is absolutely essential is to be surrounded by pretty cool people who have good values, a great sense of humour, and a deep cultural curiosity about everything in life. What a table to be nestled into with such a crowd! 

And really, who doesn't love the curve? Isn't it just Nature's way of making us all smile?

And anyway, curves are everywhere, from Diego Velázquez to Zaha Hadid's magnificent London Aquatic Center designed for the 2012 Olympics.

But in truth, I was never a curvy or a cool kind of guy. I have always revered the crisp honesty of the square and rectangle, a manmade abstraction ripe for making paintings. But to be honest, I've always been a vertical square! OK, a rectangle maybe because I'm on the tall side. And I'll admit that for most of my life, I've been a really uptight guy who needed control, something to hang onto, anything to kill that insecurity that's lived deep in the depths of me like a jelly fish. But if there is one thing that cannot be controlled it's the cool curve, and like Life, it goes where it wants to. 

But I've always been suspicious of the curve for another reason; Too many ugly and sentimental things have been fashioned from it since the beginning of time.

I've hated the copy-cat mentality of trying to imitate Nature's squirrelly designs out in the architectural and commercial worlds. Tree trunk lamps, (!) for instance, make me quite nauseous. But it's also the Steiner-inspired homes that have galvanised hippies the world over to recreate these awful, awkward shaped dwellings that I find equally dreadful. Honestly, if I wanted to live like a hobbit I would just go to New Zealand. Face it, I'm just a square.

  

Proust, Aurelius, Seinfeld!

Increasingly I've come to understand that Marcel Proust was way ahead of his time in so many ways. He was one of the first successful Post-Modernist writers to have understood the importance of exploiting his own shortcomings and indulgences to a serious world through his solipsistic prose form. 

Although Marcus Aurelius had written about a practice of stoic virtues centuries before him, Proust appears to have applied it to a modern, worldly, life-style with his lengthy tome, In Search of Lost Time. He predicted before it was fashionable, a life predicated upon the virtues of curiosity and creativity, of just keeping our senses alive and useful only for the sake of owning our own lives for better or for worse.

It occurred to me recently that perhaps the genius of a sitcom like Seinfeld is that it follows in this tradition à la Proust, of solipsistic reverie and delight in the belief of redemption through pleasure and curiosity. Though their characters were not exactly epicurean nor cultured, they tried hard for success in Manhattan despite their obvious flaws mostly those fueled by their own divine ignorance. 

And despite the cynical and slightly adversarial overtures towards others, the Seinfeld crew were generally decent but crazed people who were just looking for gratification like the rest of us. The genius of this sitcom reveals how a quartet of hapless, selfish, and lazy New Yorkers who thrived despite their flaws and still have fun. The more they showed off their worst sides the more we loved them for it.

(What has this got to do with anything?)

Nothing, Ha Ha, but the winter skies have been really spectacular lately and they have afforded me loads of pleasurable fun these late afternoons. 

Yet it's true that lately, I've been aware of how much I use this word fun. I paint for fun, as I tell people, and I play piano for fun too, ditto for when I play tennis. In fact, at my age, I try to avoid anything that does not bring me a bit of fun. But when life brings me sour cherries I'm not the least bit sour towards the world at large. And that, my friends, is what I have learned from Marcus Aurelius. In fact his own tome, aptly entitled Meditations, had a great effect upon me when I read it day by day over a year. 

But, anyway, here at the beach indeed, there are lots of people looking for pleasure (and fun) and finding it everywhere. This is after all, Australia where there is no complex about being happy. These are beach walkers, surfers, and a hardy bathers who jump into the cold ocean at dusk in winter time. Dogs too, happy, of course, and there are plenty of kids laughing and playing on the sand. Small families can be seen far down the beach, and this reassures the rest of us, those slightly pessimistic amongst us who have difficulty in imagining any kind of future for humanity.

But, tonight is the Winter Solstice and the waxing Gibbous moon is at 99.2% which is essentially full, though not technically, because according to the calendar, the moon will be officially full tomorrow on the 22nd of June. Dr Google tells me that a full moon falls on the Winter solstice only once every 19 years. 

Alas, I'm also a bit of a moon watcher because it affects the colour of the twilight 'Bloom' as I like to call it. This means that it's more difficult to paint on the few days leading up to a full moon due to the excess light that can kill this marvelous 'Bloom'. So, I'm up on this 'moon thing', and my phone is quite used to me looking up the 'moon phases of Byron Bay Australia' to verify my plans for painting at the beach. I can secretly be quite organised sometimes actually.

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 19 June 2024, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

This, from the other night reveals the craziness of the visual world, at least from the point of view of a painter. On a night like this  I barely seem to have the time to think, it feels like every time I raise my head up from the palette the colours have shifted slightly (towards intensity) as the earth approaches the evening hour. Like a caterpillar the colours appear to obey the slow and patient heartbeats of the earth's rotation. 

Me, I remain firmly fixed upon the sandy dune where I work for these sessions. There is nothing to do but follow the Arcadian ritual using a few paintbrushes as magic wand. 

Today, I wonder to myself as I write this; just how many painters have tried to follow this celestial rite? Am I the only fool?  

An old road, for old folks

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 29 April 2024, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

Here are two different kinds of pictures. This one above from April was an experiment of sorts because I had gone out with the idea to just make a few quick studies. When finished on the easel, I rather liked it, it was an image that looked complete in itself after just a quick and spontaneous beginning. It was easy place to stop. 

I put it up on Instagram and to my surprise it was well received, yet the more time I spent time with it, the less I liked it. But a few days later I was able to look at it anew and I saw it differently. Like in early Spring time, I saw sprouts of something new in it. I glimpsed a future, still unknown, and a bit crude even, but possibly a new destination maybe.

I think a painter needs to always ask themselves (but not while working!) whether or not they are on a new trail or just a comfortable footpath. The answer to this can sometimes come as a jolt for someone when they realise that they might just be covering old ground. But hey! It's not the end of the world, it's just an old path, no big deal, enjoy the view, while it lasts. 

But this is an essential spot check, part of an inventory if you like as when the guy from Head Office comes over to inspect once a month to make sure that everyone isn't just goofing off in the smoke room, high on Red Bull.

But the other hand, this painting below is more recent, and as I've already said, the weather has been so dreadful and damp after six months of rain that it is a relief to have stellar skies again. 

But regardless, I recognise that this hasn't put me on a new trail despite its bright colours and somewhat sexy appeal. I mean, I actually love it, yet after spending time with it, it feels already like the past for me. But of course that will not stop me from foraging along this well trodden footpath. Like I said, it's comfortable, and one which I'm familiar with for the time being. Until I make newer trails I'll be exploiting what I know. Unfortunately, it's slow progress for us mortals.    

And Painting, like aging, is a gymnastic  affair, and one needs to stay fit and be nimble if we desire to navigate new trails. And, he or she, who stays fit, will have certainly covered the most ground in this creative life. 

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 4 June, 2024, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

tortoise, not the hare

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 7 June 2024, oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm

Finally, the weather has turned and the winter brings a calmer sea often turning pale turquoise then crazy pink in June and July. 

I've had a good week and this one I like particularly because it says what I feel. 

For me, I think the more I paint the easier it becomes to access the bridge to my own emotions.

Let's face it, we all have emotions that sail through us like clouds but to exercise a craft; music, writing, painting, whatever, we develop the means to solidify them and deftly seal them into time for ever. 

As happens often through steady work, large avenues will open up more frequently and they appear to go on endlessly, and like luck, whole vistas of opportunity spring up like giant billboards along the way to beckon us further.

All those visual dreams I've had while walking the twilight beach since first coming here 25 years ago begin to take form. 

Hey! I'm slow! I know that, my path is one of the tortoise not the hare.

Spartan appeal

Henri Matisse, oil portrait, 1930's? (1869 - 1954)

It's June! Time to fall in love with someone! And how I love this woman! I cannot seem to locate its provenance nor when it was painted but something tells me it was late, perhaps 1930's or 1940's...? 

Henri Matisse was such an innovator, an artist who truly experimented with so many different graphic approaches to representation. I admire him for this even though I might not be crazy about some of his solutions. But I love the many pathways during his artistic lifetime. 

What pulls me into this portrait is the expressive simplicity. The drawing appears to naturally come out of his many austere line drawings made during several decades before his death. I love the Spartan appeal to emotional clarity found in these late portraits. 

The background is a scratchy flat black and reminiscent of a grade school blackboard altered by striking white crosses. The flat portrait seems to stand out by colour alone, the golden head and hair is housed within a wonderful pale broken pink dress. And pink and black are my favourite combinations when paired together one next to the other.

I guess one gets it or they don't. I cannot say anything more about it except that it's the kind of portrait that makes me want to get back to making portraits!