You can see a little preview of it on the easel ; )

It took more than a month of pre-preparation to come back from my vacation in the Schoening Castle and it is different. Bright Colors, playful… it’s fun.

Contemplating over this work in progress is like watching clouds and making up shapes and forms. It stimulates my imagination to a hilarious silly degree I wonder what you will find in it. It is almost done, so in a few days you can go on a little imaginary trip of your own.

Oh, and btw …Merry Christmas to you!!!

So I am working at four paintings at the same time right now. One is almost finished, the big one, the one I couldn’t look at for a while, the one I was so tired of for a while. On Monday during a phone conversation with a friend, I suddenly saw it again with fresh eyes and the beauty of it and I loved it again and it was good to finish it and to do the little patch ups and give it the last drive – a little bit like you would give the last spices to a dish you are cooking…. a little bit here and there. Cooking is very much like painting, I already noticed it way over 1 1/2 years ago when I started painting again. The “flow” experience is the same and the creation is a unique piece of art. Try to cook the same dish a second time – it is impossible.

Well yeah, so I almost finished the big one ( see a little detail here ). The only thing I still have to do is signing it and I waited with it, not sure why. I have time – I am not in a rush anymore. I am back in the first gear, sitting on a sailboat on a wide calm sea just sailing along.

The reason for me changing gears is that I got to a limit – a train barrier. I had to put a vision on ice, one that I was about to take on. Instead I play the waiting game.The flip side of it is, I have a lot of time to ” kleine Brötchen backen ( bake small rolls )” a German saying that  means something like ” to eat humble pie”.

Somehow I don’t really get further than talking about the big painting ( did you noticed ? ) although it actually wasn’t the only one I almost finished. I forgot the little blue one that went so well within just two weeks. I want to do more of those small ones and I already started the other one that is a little bit bigger in size but will get the same colors. And the freeway painting is back on track too. It is a fun paint and I still don’t know where it is going – but well.

Have a great weekend!!!

Once I figured what was going on I was able to relax into it. It is not really about the art or whatever. It is just the blind spot, the chaotic juice in everyone of us. It is the motor of change. The unpredictable – I don’t want to miss it. What I don’t want is to attach it to anything specific in my life. The Alp likes to clinch to any surface that grips because this is the way it works. The mind endlessly tries to make sense of the world and works in an associative way it tries to rely – non stop – whatever comes to mind, any area that occupies your mind, gets amplified. In this incident the art work was the victim. Never mind.

What came out beautifully from all this is a piece that totally gets me and I wanna do tons of it ( at least this is how it feels at the moment). It is a layer of Latex applied onto a modeled surface on canvas. The ground was a painting I started last year and overpainted several times till I finally created a highly structured surface with sharp edges – all very rough but authentic in the moment. It was leaning against the wall for almost a year and I used to call it the “left over” painting. My friend wanted to convince me to lend it to her because she loved it but something made me hesitate. On Thursday night, at the peak of my frustration, I suddenly had an inspiration. Interestinlgy I didn’t see the painting in my mind as I used to but felt it instead. I felt the skin-like rubber running over a sharp and rocky surface,smoothening it out, covering it up and the indulgence about it. Totally cool.

I had to take a short brake from painting for two days due to a sudden back pain that wouldn’t allow me to raise my arm or the paint brush in my hand. So I pretty much spend those two days looking at my paintings and finishing them in my mind what is fine with me too.

Yesterday, I did an emergency appointment with my Thai masseuse and after she walked my back and legs, teared at my head and spend over half an hour at my neck ( she knocked on the wooden subdivisions of the Thai massage place to illustrate how tight my back was! )  I finally was able to move my head and arms again though accompanied with some pain – still. I picked up the brush the same night and worked for a while at the big painting that is almost finished and gave the green lights of the freeway in this painting another layer. I am very excited about this one. It is so much fun. I love the glowing lights -  this reminds me of the song Heirloom. I was so fortunate to meet another Björk fan in The Distillery during the Venice Art Walk this weekend and we were talking about those “glowing lights” in particular.

This is an extract of the lyrics of Heirloom:

I have a recurrent dream
Everytime I loose my voice
I swallow little glowing lights
My mother and son baked for me

And during the night
They do a trapeze walk
Until they’re in the sky
Right above my bed

…..

Maybe this painting won’t take as long as I thought in the end. I can already see parts that won’t change anymore that are fix, areas where my gaze wouldn’t “stumble”, areas that run smoothly.

Right now, I am balancing it out. I see a horizontal white stripe somewhere in the upper left and the light magenta will get several layer of dark magenta and the shape on the upper right that is yellow right now will also get layers of magenta. I love the dark magenta tone and I see it in the other painting I am working on simultaneously as well. It is a new color for me – I never used it in any of my paintings before. It is such a warm and comforting color

- it is like sitting on a shadily  patio in a french wine country during a hot afternoon in the summer, crickets, smell of hey, warm wind and enjoying a deep red wine, something like Rioja ( spanish folks, please forgive me, I know it is not a french wine but it fits so well into this association.)

I always liked Rioja, its heavy dark body and the slight touch of port wine due to the time it stayed in a wooden barrel. These are the kind of associations that I have while painting. Color, surface and composition is very important to me.

02

01

This painting has a story, oh boy I tell ya.

It all started when I entered Oklahoma City during my road trip last December. The sky was literally on fire. It is still so clear in my memory – what an amazing sunset.

I remember shortly before I was about to take the exit for the motel6 after I drove for hours that I saw those water tanks. I remember my thoughts ” Wow, this would make an awesome picture” and then I already passed them. I briefly thought about taking the next exit and driving by again and actually taking the picture but I don’t know why I didn’t.

Since then I was regretting that I didn’t. It reminds me of the jeans at Mango I tried last autumn and didn’t buy. There was this incredible golden coat on it. I thought ” Gosh, when do you think you are gonna wear it?”

NOW! Now, I would wear it but never mind. So I regretted that I didn’t take this picture as I regret that I didn’t buy those jeans. ( Anyone who knows what jeans I am talking about – I am so open for negotiation )

Since the picture in my mind was haunting me and wouldn’t let me leave alone I did some research and was happy to find out, that yes, in fact, there are two water tanks next to the freeway in Oklahoma City ( so no weird mistake in the matrix or something ) and how lucky was I to find out that yes, other people also thought they were worth a picture. I even found one with a slightly orange sky.

Then it took me a test run with this painting and some hesitation and fear until I finally started it more then a month back. I had to figure out how to find the exact orange tone and finally achieved it through layering ( lot of layers, mental note to myself: next time – white background when applying light color above )

When I finalized the background my group show came up and I stopped and put it off again and again. I simply didn’t feel like I could take it on and I wasn’t sure if I ever would. I somewhat gave it up, already considering an overpaint. Then last week, simultaneously to the “big painting” I somehow felt myself into it and suddenly, I could see it again and it was incredible joyful to explore it and put my mental picture to the canvas. It is not finished yet and honestly I am not sure if I will, this painting has its own rules, but I already love it so much.

04

03

Finding the right magenta tone has been a journey. It is still not the correct one but we are getting closer.

I feel a structure growing into the painting ( I totally neglected the tangerines and I don’t know what to do with them right now ) It is such an interesting painting it lives from the “mistakes” in it. Every “mistake” drives it to another horizon another point of view it is so interesting in a structural, intellectual way. It is like a mathematical equation and a garden with irregular shaped apples at the same time. It will take a long time. I know it. This is one of those paintings that take a while like “intense” from last year. ( I think I stared at this painting longer than actually painting on it )

What do you see? What comes to your mind? Never mind how unrelated it may seem, any feedback is appreciated. Any thought that pops into your mind, please spill it out in the comment area.

The galaxy came easy on Saturday morning and filled an empty space that had been there before. The fish came shortly after that, along with the bear and when I added layers of modeling paste on Wednesday the political phallus also fell into place. I had a strong desire to paint tangerines on Sunday while listening to Lhasa’s anywhere on this road.

On Wednesday night I felt a sudden boost of energy and I needed to paint blue. This blue is the second generation of a mixture I did last summer. I kept a small sample and when I ran out of that blue I used it  to re-mix it and to match the new mixture with the original sample. I tried to keep track of the amount of different shades of blues in it and I even wrote some notes down. I was painting intensively for hours to the point I made the vertical lines in modeling paste, they sobered me up and I lost the desire to proceed. The same night I had a dream about me standing in front of an old-fashion and massive iron oven, resting on short iron legs. When I looked inside I didn’t see a fire as one would expect but two or three shafts that would spin very fast and where covered with little iron spikes . I threw a dollar bill into the oven and it got shredded into a million little pieces within a second. I woke up and felt great.

The next night I added an extra layer of paste over  the two big white round forms and evened the grooves in it to achieve a smooth surface, having a calm sea in mind.

I still want to do something about the tangerines and bring more detail into different parts. The white round shapes might become light blue and there is a color in the lower part I am not sure about yet, maybe some dark redish.

The galaxy came easy on Saturday morning and filled an empty space that had been there before. The fish came shortly after that, along with the bear and when I added layers of modeling paste on Wednesday the political phallus also fell into place. I had a strong desire to paint tangerines on Sunday while listening to Lhasa’s anywhere on this road.

On Wednesday night I felt a sudden boost of energy and I needed to paint blue. This blue is the second generation of a mixture I did last summer. I kept a small sample and when I ran out of that blue I used it  to re-mix it and to match the new mixture with the original sample. I tried to keep track of the amount of different shades of blues in it and I even wrote some notes down. I was painting intensively for hours to the point I made the vertical lines in modeling paste, they sobered me up and I lost the desire to proceed. The same night I had a dream about me standing in front of an old-fashion and massive iron oven, resting on short iron legs. When I looked inside I didn’t see a fire as one would expect but two or three shafts that would spin very fast and where covered with little iron spikes . I threw a dollar bill into the oven and it got shredded into a million little pieces within a second. I woke up and felt great.

The next night I added an extra layer of paste over  the two big white round forms and evened the grooves in it to achieve a smooth surface, having a calm sea in mind.

I still want to do something about the tangerines and bring more detail into different parts. The white round shapes might become light blue and there is a color in the lower part I am not sure about yet, maybe some dark redish.

02

01

I am going to fill up this 36″x 60″ canvas and share it with you.

Do you want to see something particular in there? What do you want me to paint?

Comment a noun and I will paint it in there.

It is a play – play with me.

This painting has no script, it grows as it breaths.