Jasmine and Daly

 

8.5" X 11" Oil on Birch Plywood

I haven't worked with too many cats before, and these two were an interesting challenge, as the painting was built almost as a collaborative between myself and Jasmine and Daly's owner.  B. worked to compose the piece from different photographs, and I did the painting and tuning-up of the color and background.  This is a painting which had to be of a particular size to fit inside of an incredibly beautiful frame, and I think that some of the rough, chunky brushstrokes are going to work really nicely with the ornate frame.  This was also one of my first experiences doing a double portrait, and the way that it turns out is that all the attention to detail that you put into the features of one cat, you spend an almost equal amount of time on the other one.  It is, however, cool to see all of these eyes looking back at you when you catch the painting in your periphery.

Abby and the Chewed-Up Tennis Ball

14.5" x 16" oil on masonite

OK, here's one that I like a lot:  A recent commission was to capture Abby the (Golden/Lab cross) for the client's husband's birthday.  S. is coming into town Thursday to pick it up, and I'm really excited to hand it off to her.  As per usual, I waited until I had just enough time to complete the painting, let the oil and varnish dry before delivery, but that's just how I roll.  I like to work with a bit of anxiety nipping at my heels.  It lets me know I'm alive, and it makes the little decisions more crucial, and I think it makes me a better painter, when I'm under the gun, and I have to perform, and the painting must get done this long weekend or I'll ruin somebody's birthday.  Anyhow, here's what I like about this painting: Again, a lot of color to describe a light dog, and a really wicked tennis ball.  The expression on Abby's face asks to play ball in any language on Earth, and I really worked the reflective, glistening quality of her eyes, and the little bits of light falling on the deck in the background.  This commission is for a Gulf Island home, and I know it's going to be just stunning with some dedicated lighting and some appropriately scaled wallspace.

Communion

18" X 26" oil on masonite

Here's an unfinished piece which was worked from a series of photos of Amelie's first communion at our good friends' farm in Manitoba.  White sky, wind, just coming up on a bitter time of year, this beautiful family is dancing and playing outside-  And in reality, inside, all the people who have shown up to celebrate the first communion are looking out the window and thinking, "who are these people?"  This painting is going to evolve organically, as there is no set timeframe for which it has to get done.  I can kinda mess with it, and tweak it from time to time until the next time Steph and Lise come out to visit-  At which time I'll have to hustle to get it done, because it is theirs.  They are getting together a nice collection of artwork, some stuff by Ken Chambers, Denise Lesage's Woodpile, Bonnie's Pottery and other cool Valley artist's stuff.  I'm really happy to be part of their collection.

Otis and the Birdhouse

13.5" X 20.5", oil on masonite

You'd think that with a black dog, or with a white dog, or with a black-and-white dog you would just  mix up a bunch of black and squeeze out a bunch of white and get to it-  And I suppose that would be mostly true if your subject was lit with pure white light against a black background, or a white background, but as soon as the subject, (in this case, big handsome Otis the Great Dane) starts hanging out on his big ol' bed with a big ol' hardwood floor underneath, warmed by a sort of  light umber wall and lit by light bouncing off of a windowsill which has already gone through the trees, you start talking about more than straight black and white, and you get all these nice blues and greens and yellows and pinks everywhere-  And compositionally, sticking a big ol' Great Dane foot right out in the very foregroundmost part of the painting underscores the size of this guy and made me very happy.  It was therapeutic for me to spend several hours over a few days looking into the handsome face of this handsome dog and trying to get the painting just right.

Sheba the Spaniel

 

8"X8" oil on masonite

Here's a commission that I've just finished and am really happy with.  I'm liking how all the brush strokes are visible and it's just the right amount of chunky without getting blocky or cartoony.  This turned out to be my second run at this painting-  The first attempt was more of a 3/4 view and the proportions weren't what I was looking for.  I also blasted too much phthalo green in the background, mixed with titanium white, and you know what that looks like.  So I tried to go with the addition of some alizarin crimson, (which when it's mixed with pure phthalo green gives a really good black, thanks Gary Smith) to grey up the Christmas green that I had just made, but then it all just mudded out on me, which is really frustrating.  The first painting that I attempted of Sheba is alright-  But more of a sketch of a painting than a finished piece-  And not something that I would feel comfortable as the final-  More of like a dress rehearsal, if you get my drift...

Graphite Powder Drawings

In universities across Europe and North America, education is built around the simple concept of not necessarily just trying to impart as much wisdom in as brief a time span as possible, but teaching students how to think and learn for the long term.  More valuable than all of this is the simple precept of requiring the student to learn how to ask the important questions related to their major.  For example: The engineering student should be made not only to learn to calculate the physics involved in the structural aspects of their field, but to ask, "How can we build this thing better, stronger or faster?" -depending on the specialty of their focus.  The Accounting student should be made to ask not only, "How much will this cost?" but also "Will this project (or business) be sustainable for the long term?"  The Fine Art students, again, should be made to focus on and practice important questions as well, and get used to asking the questions, "Would you like fries with that?" and also, "Where do you want these 2X4's?"

Here are a couple of drawings from when I was living in Portland, Oregon and showing at the Blackfish Gallery.  They were made using graphite powder and an eraser.  You coat the heavyweight acid-free paper with graphite powder, and then start carving away the negative space.  Very satisfying when you drag the eraser across the surface of the graphite, and on first pass it only burnishes, creating a reflection that can only be seen at an angle.  Really fun and messy media, graphite powder.  Thanks Geoff Barnes!

"I'm Looking at the Man in the Mirror"

6.5" X 8", oil on masonite

There's a huge difference between being outside and working with beautiful plants and throwing the tennis ball around with the dogs and always eating al fresco and building like a shed or what have you- and sitting in your studio in wintertime, looking at yourself in the mirror and you've got it tilted so you can really see up your own nose, which for some reason you don't really realize, as you're painting it, that that's what the painting is becoming about. (which you hadn't intended) What you were thinking, is that it might be nice to clean your gross brushes, sit down with some nice music and warm it up, Chris. It's been awhile, and that familiar feeling is creeping in, and speaking of creep-y, who cares if you do a self-portrait that's kind of creepy to look at? The idea is to loosen it up after not having worked for a while, and like Geoff Barnes was talking about, it's not really talent- it's practice. And not being an idiot.
So anyways, it's good to look up your own nostrils for a couple of hours, and it's good to get your gear all laid out and ready for a nice winter of painting. (And on a little side note- Whenever I write "anyways," as a joke, it becomes harder and harder for me to spot the difference between the joke and the real way, which is like giving yourself brain damage on purpose, in order to be funny. Which reminds me: I was talking to a woman I had just met last week and I tried to use the word "ebullient" in a sentence, and, I don't know, maybe I had never even said that word out loud before; maybe I've only ever read it, but I sounded so ridiculous, and my mispronunciation was so hideous that I think she thought I was drunk, which was humiliating. I should have just used the word "happy.")

The Road to Courtenay

8"X 8" oil on masonite

I almost can't write the words, "The Road," for fear of the movie that's coming out based off Cormac McCarthy's book of the same name.  The book disturbed the living piss out of me, and it looks like, based on the couple of trailers I've seen, the movie is going to be just as terrifying.  And I mean deep-down, soul-crushingly terrifying.  At least to me anyway.  And what's with all of this fascination with post-apocalyptic survival genre/zombie movie fascination lately?  Why is the Zeitgeist all fixated on catastrophe and not free love?  Wait... Don't answer that.

Anyway, Here's a painting of the Inland Island Highway between Parksville and Courtenay, with just a bit of a rusty bridge crossing the route in the background and a big ol' melancholy sky, as if  a painting of a melancholy sky really matters, in the grand scheme of things.

"Island Fresh Ruby Red"

8" X 8"oil on masonite

Seriously. Sometimes some of your silliest paintings are also your most successful, and this is one of my own personal favorites. It's about a couple of different things; but mainly it's about the difference in value between wattle and feather. The difference, when setting up your palette, between being deliberate and being all willy-nilly. I prefer being deliberate to being willy-nilly for the most part with paintings, but then again, let's not forget that there is certainly a time to be willy-nilly. In fact, I'm feeling a little willy-nilly right now, to be quite honest. And maybe the trick is to be kindof majorly deliberate for the most part, but with a nice juicy splash of the willies from time to time, in painting as well as in everything.

A Sincere Thanks to All Who Showed Up.

The Oceanside Gallery Opening Evening Reception at 7PM at the Oceanside Gallery turned out real great. A sincere thanks to everyone who was able to make it and support both Tony Kirby and myself. I got to meet some really smart/kindof intimidating local artists and also got to chit-chat with the Bellevue crew who came out to represent big-time, and you know; I'll tell you this right now: If you ever have to move to a town and you're new or whatever, and you put yourself out there and decide, "Hey, yeah, I think I'll show some of my paintings." And then opening night rolls around and you're kind of worried that nobody's going to show up- Know one thing: The Bellevue Clinic is down to represent itself at your function, guaranteed. A bunch of scintillating, good-looking, quality human beings. And I love them.

And so, speaking of quality human beings: Dr. K. Keller, (pictured at left, in burgundy, holding a jacket or something. Not the older dude in olive with the wineglass.) is the type of guy who, when his comrade is at a charity auction, and his comrade's painting is being auctioned, and there are no real takers, and the comrade is becoming more and more mortified by the moment, Dr. K. Keller is the type of guy who will raise his arm and cry, "$300 over here!" And basically get the bidding going again so the comrade/artist ends up getting a decent price for his painting after all, instead of having to slink out of the auction not only not having donated sufficiently to a worthy cause, but also feeling like a roomful of people think your painting sucks. So this one's for you, Dr. K. Keller: You are the true definition of a modern valorous gentleman and I, for one, just want to pick you up and give you a hug.

"Collaborative Finish"

14" x 24" oil and acrylic on birch plywood

And I have done a little exploring in the world of lucid dreaming- although I wouldn't consider myself an onironaut yet, but I kept a lucid dream journal at one dedicated point once, for six weeks running, and I have to say; it was exhausting and exhilarating: Imagine that, for weeks, you can clearly remember all of your dreams like it was everyday life, and so for weeks, all of your memories get kind of combined with your waking life's memories, and so you remember writing on the walls which was inverted or backwards or whatever, and animals that show up at odd times and things being out-of-place and being chased by zombies and cannibals and don't you know that tons of people use their dogs as ring-bearers for their own weddings these days? You didn't just dream that, you tell yourself.

"Henry, the Pink Rug and Maria's Nude Foot"

8" x 14" oil on masonite

You know, you never can be sure just who is punk rock. Just when you think you have everybody pegged, and you're all comfy with the universe being nice and tidy, and all of the usual suspects are all safely packaged up and in their respective places; you get a little curveball. By curveball, I mean that faintly, ever so faintly, you hear a bit of Black Flag in the background while on the telephone with somebody who you would be surprised to hear Black Flag in the background while on the telephone with. Or you catch a flash of a Canadian Maple Leaf tattoo as someone fetches something from the bottom drawer in the kitchen; or you take more than two seconds to peruse someone's bookshelf, and find that there is much, much more than John Grisham on the shelves...

Speaking of finding alternative media on bookshelves, I must refer here to "Jane Fonda's Workout" of 1982, which, uncannily, I find on the bookshelves of all of the coolest people I have ever met, and which book, I suppose, has become, in a way, my own personal "Catcher in the Rye," although I think that that might seem hopelessly shallow.

"A Collaborative"

14" x 24" oil and acrylic on birch plywood

So this is that collaborative piece I was telling you about that I'm working on with the painter Tony Kirby for the Oceanside Gallery show in April. It's basically a guy holding some luggage in one hand and reaching out to (a woman? two women?) with his other hand. The women are laughing and walking the other way. The man sort of looks like a zombie, or the dancing puppet John Malcovich when John Cusack is controlling his body in the movie "Being John Malcovich," and I guess that's what I'm starting to like about this painting: the idea that the lumbering zombie with camoflauge britches holding the suitcase doesn't get the girl this time...

I get to have the painting for one more time in my studio and I need to figure out a good narrative for just what exactly is happening here, anyway, seriously. So any suggestions? STAIRBLASTER thinks I shouldn't be doing collaborative paintings in the first place, but that just shows you how much he knows, and I was thinking birds and a maybe a monkey, but then again, I always want to work birds and maybe a monkey into my paintings.

"Detained in Belarus"

10"x 10" oil on masonite

When we were younger and there was no particular agenda, we decided that it might be a good idea to see if we could sneak into Russia. This was before Ion had started with law school or written a book or had a family, and we had a bunch of time, so after we had traveled around Poland, we decided that we should probably just go to Moscow by train, avoiding any guards as we went by moving stealthily from car to car and pretending we were reading newspapers or whatever. Instead of actually obtaining a visa, we figured that we would use our combined powers of persuasion with any border officials or train guards, if questioned. Like Jedis. We didn't quite make it as far as Minsk, in Belarus, before we were hustled off the train, (and do I remember a guard throwing my bag out the window?) and detained for a few hours. It was like "Boy's State: Eastern Bloc" for the next few hours as we tag-teamed the border guards with rhetoric, vehicular openings, and strategic argument, and it almost worked.

This is a painting of Ion wielding a mighty argument with a border guard under the fluorescents of a holding area in Hrodna. I love that Soviet architecture with concrete and cavernous spaces and polished floors which catch reflections and light. I also love the slightly mismatched uniforms of the border guards, and the guards' friends sort of "hanging out," in case there is any trouble. And Ion, as ever, clean-cut even after a bunch of dodgy Bialystock hotels, earnestly making his argument not for release, but campaigning to press on, press on, further into the unknown.

The Big Picture

So I've been thinking:

Over the next 12 months, I am going to be documenting the planning, preparation and implementation of my family's one-year experiment- To consume only the food we've produced ourselves here on our little farm on Vancouver Island, B.C.

I'm doing this because I'm interested in discovering whether this can be done at all; as a bit of a challenge for myself; as a way to learn some new skills, obviously as an exercise to consume fewer global resources, and also, in the event of a massive viral outbreak or a zombie infestation, I'd like to know that I could last at least a year, feeding my family, and keeping them healthy, even though all the local supermarkets have long since been burned to the ground and the nearest shopping mall is occupied by biker gangs.

Throughout this experiment, I am going to try and enlist the help/commentary of people with specialized knowledge of some of the subjects I'll be approaching over the next few months: from power and water management to gardening and animal husbandry to greenhouse construction and food preservation. I think what I'll do is try to post 5 "meta-projects" which I'll need feedback in order to move forward with, while at the same time I'll also post projects that I can sort of figure out on my own.

I'm not going to be afraid to ask for help throughout this project, for I'm starting out with a big handicap: I'm a bit of an idiot. You know how there are those people in the world who are kind of wise/knowledgeable about a whole host of subjects? Well I'm not one of them. I'm a really hard worker- I'll put in tons of hours on a project, but usually because I have to do things twice.

I am originally from Sonoma, California, which is one of the most beautiful and temperate places on Earth, but I think maybe for my adult life I wanted to live somewhere a bit wilder, with some weather and some snow, so I moved to Eugene, Oregon for University, where I got my degree in Fine Art, then moved to Portland, Oregon where I worked, made some paintings, and met Natacha Lesage, a Canadian veterinarian who was on a working visa in Portland. Natacha and I took a year to travel around the world before getting married in her small hometown of Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba, and then, after a couple more adventures, moved here to Vancouver Island, bought this really run-down ten-acre farm, had a little baby boy and now we're ready, with Spring almost here, to put some sweat and tears into our hobby farm, and get it producing some sweet sweet milk and honey.

Each and every one of these posts is meant to invite discussion, so feel free to post your comments below.

"Lavender Blue Dilly Dilly"

8"X 8" oil on masonite

I was thinking about Francoise and le fromage bleu, et cette petit chien bleu, Dilly, and being fascinated by my extended French family actually eating big chunks of ripe/fragrant/slightly (and maybe this is my imagination) petulant blue cheese, and what's more, appearing not to be faking their pleasure when they'd say, "That cheese really tasted good."

Because for me, I was always really faking it when I'd say, w/r/t foul-smelling cheese, "Oh this Pont l'Eveque is just fabulous!" And then I'd privately spit it out into my napkin, as I naturally assumed everyone else was doing too. This was all before Natacha gave me the simple excercise of taking just a bit of blue cheese, on top of a wedge of butter, on top of a cracker, and eating that, and I've got to tell you, it felt like the way I felt the first time I rode a bicycle without training wheels- I was like, "Holy crap! I'm actually doing this! I'm eating and enjoying blue cheese!" And now, I don't understand how anybody can really have any particular aversion to anything culinary anyhow. It's all just a big fetid playground; and for me, the world is now full of food I don't like yet; I just need some time to figure out the secret way to eat it. (Additionally, I'm always kind of laughing whenever I eat cheese now anyway because I'll invariably think of last Christmas when Mireille referred to cheese as "stool hardener," which is hilarious.)

And by the way- I'm also going to be showing some paintings at the Oceanside Gallery for the month of April with my friend Tony Kirby. We're each showing some recent paintings, and although we work a bit differently, we've got a collaborative piece that we've been trading off to each other every week for the past few weeks, and the last time it was in my studio, I must admit, the painting was really starting to take an odd, if not entirely unpleasing shape. But anyway we've got another couple of weeks to fix it up before the opening reception, which is on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 7PM- and I certainly hope to see you there.

"Djemma el Fna, Marrakesh"

10" x 17" oil on masonite

So this is a painting of the Djemma el Fna square in Marrakesh, Morocco- just before they start setting up all the barbeques and tables and lights, and you're getting really hungry for lamb or whatever, and you've only had orange juice in the hours between your breakfast and this moment, because you're a little embarrassed to come down off the roof of your hotel because you were convinced to buy a jaloba that is like a big ladies' dress, and you wear your Fanny Pack underneath the dress, so you end up looking like a pregnant tourist man, even though the idea behind purchasing the jaloba in the first place is so that you would blend in. And you really don't blend in.

But now, here in Canada, you're remembering what it was like, years ago, to really sleep on the rooftop of the hotel because it was cheaper, and you remember how that pretty French girl, who was also sleeping on the roof, noticed you sketching in your sketchpad and wanted her portrait done; and you were nervous, and you were trying so hard, and she was waiting forever, and you just stared in horror as your own drawing turned out worse and worse. And you watched yourself draw a picture of an aging Cro-Magnon woman, and here in front of you was this real live beautiful French girl, waiting in the sun, on a rooftop in Marrakesh, and you're thinking to yourself, panic-stricken, "Maybe I can somehow turn this into a drawing of a boat or an eagle or something."

"The Light in Manitoba"

8"X 8" oil on masonite

Here is a painting that I made as a gift for some good friends/relatives this last holiday season and it was one of those paintings that started to feel like a deck of cards as I kept getting further into it. Or like maybe Jenga or whatever. I just kept watching these nice clear shapes emerge, as I was painting, and I was like, "Holy crap, this might be a good painting." And then I got to the point where, (yes, Jenga is the analogy, not the cards) I wasn't going to take any more out or put any more in, and so I just left it alone and there it was, just sitting there.

(And now whenever I sort of congratulate myself on a nice painting I remember Ron Graff calling me a "softie" after looking at my work and I feel like a load of crap again.) Anyway, I was listening to Frank Black's "Manitoba" about that guy getting lost in the woods while I painted this.

"Grace and the Persian Rug"

8"X 8" oil on masonite

I'm just now getting into painting on a rigid substrate with a dark ground, which makes a huge difference w/r/t how I've always painted. (i.e. scrubbing away at a bouncing canvas trying to fill up white space and making these little depressions on the surface of the painting itself -because I'm all concentrating- but then instead of getting mad you just incorporate the depressions into the work anyway, as if they were purposeful, and find that you're making maybe even a bonus sublimated commentary or something like that.) Anyway, I feel like with a dark ground one gets to make more decisions instead of just trying to knock out white, is what I was trying to say; but then again, the title, "Manet's Sandwich" just popped into my head- like it always does- So what does that tell you?.

This is a painting of Gracie, for M.S. and A.N. in Parksville, B.C. They were the type of people for whom I love making paintings. We got together at their place to talk art a bit, and give Gracie some scratches, and take some pictures of her, and get an idea of her favorite area of the house: Which turns out to be on her bed under a window with September's anemic light coming in, right by a colorful rug. Nice for painting, eh? I'm really pleased with how it all worked out, start to finish.