Look, See

Part V: Smokey, Jackie, Jackie, Mookie

Part IV: Smokey, Jackie, Jackie, Mookie

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It isn't often that I'm going to highlight a comptemporary "realist" or "representational" painter, whatever that is anyway, which is a whole other discussion, but I have long like John Wesley's paintings, which are currently showing at Fredericks Freiser in NY.

Part III: Smokey, Jackie, Jackie, Mookie

Part II: Smokey, Jackie, Jackie, Mookie

Part I: Smokey, Jackie, Jackie, Mookie

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Ana Finel Honigman on Howard Hodgkin at Artnet.

Joe La Plac interviews Donald Baechler at Artnet.

Test 2 & 3

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My grandmother, my father's mother, was born in Texas in 1905, coming to California in the late '30's. My mother's parents, both born in the late 1890's and raised in Arkansas, came to California post-WW II. Both sets of grandparents retained a certain way of talking throughout their lives.

In particular, my paternal grandmother used occasional language and phrasing that was passed down to us, sort of jumping over or through our father. For example, instead of sawying "a few" she would say "a couple or three." I still say this. When we'd go get hamburgers to bring back to her house after a Saturday of yard work for her she'd get the condiments out of the refrigerator in order to "doctor them up." She didn't say ice cream, usually, but instead, "Would you boys like some cream?" And whenever one of us was being difficult or disagreeable she would call us "contrary." Don't be so contrary." "Now, you're just being contrary." My younger brother and I can crack each other up by using that word with a very slight twang in an affectionate way.

I know I'm contrary. Often I'll say I don't like something, criticize it, dismiss it, and I immediately think after, "Well, do I really? Who do I think I am?" I rarely feel contrary when I've been positive, but I often feel contrary in conversation, as if it's my nature to go another way.

Last Friday, on ending the series "Places I Have Slept" I wrote:

I have seen many painting shows where a painter has a motif, a figure, or a layout, and each painting in that body of work is just a different set of colors. Imagine any one of my drawings repeated ten or twelve times where the only real problem from work to work is color. This works well for some people, but I seem to have a hard time doing this. I don't naturally repeat myself, but instead have to choose to constantly do so. Typically, I've got to at least do enough of a significant variation from work to work so that I have not only a color problem but also a drawing problem, a spatial problem, and a scale problem to work with.

Knowing this, I decided to do just that for a couple or three days; the drawings on Saturday, Sunday, and today use the same structure. Only the color schemes change. It wasn't so bad.

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Catherine mentions her "new employee orientation." Huh? Did I miss something? You already have a job in El Paso?

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In CIRCA art magazine John Beagles write:

In a recent article, Robert Johnston, a Glasgow-based artist and writer, criticised the pervasive evil of the 'good idea' in contemporary art. Recounting a unproductive exchange with a college tutor, where he had been informed that he needed a 'good idea' to ground his work, Johnston came to the conclusion that he "hated good ideas." His irritation and disillusionment with any art that can be reduced to a movie-pitch hook is interesting, timely and astute...



For Johnston 'good idea' represents a constellation of insidious strands in contemporary art. The good idea propels the kind of art which, in its streamlining of artistic aspirations down to a single idea, frequently demonstrates as much depth as a puddle. Johnston's dissatisfaction - "if there's one thing I can't stand it's the kind of art whose whole raison d'être is the good idea" is understandable. In part I share it.

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Test 1

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Jim's second weblog, Shed, (his first is private) is about a month old and, previously private, suddenly public. Good stuff here, a very interesting project. Dig around a little, there are a few surprises. Be sure to read "When."