Sky Study, 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Sky Study, 2009

For some reason, after a very long hiatus I have begun to bake again. This is a pflaumenkuchen which, having German paternal grandparents, is the essence of mid-summer for me; even after all these years. Unfortunately my grandmother's recipe passed on along with my Aunt so I am attempting to reconstruct it from my taste memory. This one was good, but the plums were the wrong variety & a bit sour. I didn't mind as I like sour but for the "taste of the past", the real temp perdu, I'm going to have to find those small, navy blue Italian prune plums.

The cake isn't quite right either…

Fireworks, 2009

Please note there is a new little slideshow in the sidebar…

(Larger images here.)

Sky Study, 2009

Sky Study, 2009

Sky Study, 2009

Sky Study, 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

L'Age d'Or, 1985
SX-70

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Swimmer, c. 1983
SX-70

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Architectural Detail (Sunset), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Suburban Study (Twilight), 2009

Untitled (Yellow), 2009

Solstice, 2009

Found Object #3a
Map from a Soviet Atlas, circa 1954

I particularly like this map because it breaks the ruled frame & also for it's delicate tonalities; both are, to my eye, reminiscent of Persian & Mughal Indian miniature painting.

Found Object #3
Map of the Middle East from a Soviet Atlas, circa 1953

Found Object #2

Toy Yak

Kit, circa 1980
SX-70

It's interesting, having not looked at these SX-70 photographs in over twenty years, my basic approach doesn't seem to have changed much. Is this a good or a bad thing? Mind you, I stopped taking photos in the late 1980s & didn't use a camera again until about four years ago so esentially I'm sort of picking up where I left off…

Self Portrait, 1981

SX-70

Still Life, 2009

Found Object #1

Thermometer box

It's raining. Again…

Honestly, I don't often resort to self medicating but you know, it's just been one of those weeks…

Thunderstorm, 2:27 AM, 2009

I continue to take photos of the rain, in the night & as you can see, last night was one hell of a downpour but I think this one is still my favorite.

Garden Study (Ailanthus), 2009

The Descent…

Rogier Van der Weyden
The Descent from the Cross, c. 1430-1435
Museo del Prado, Madrid

If you go here, you will find that the Prado has allowed Google Earth to make ultra high definition images of fourteen paintings considered by the museum to be the most significant works from their collection & The Descent from the Cross is one of them. If you haven't taken advantage of this I highly recommend taking a look. Be sure & check out Nicodemus' face; he's the one in black & gold holding Christ's legs. Van der Weyden's ability to capture realistic emotion made him one of the most acclaimed painters of his time & the grief stricken face of Nicodemus is a perfect example.

One can actually zoom in close enough to see the brushstrokes…

A Flemish Primitive…

Rogier Van der Weyden
Diptych of the Crucifixion, c. 1463-1464
Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

It sometimes feels like the Renaissance is owned by the Italians but I have always had a soft spot for the northern painters; particularly the Flemish masters with their brilliant glazing technique & attention to detail. Having said that, this painting, while containing little of the detail that so often shines in early Northern Renaissance works, has always been a favorite of mine because of it's unusually minimal & highly stylized formal elements. The framing of the figures in each panel with a flat, undraped panel of brilliant vermilion cloth, broken only by the creased grid of fold lines is quite dramatic. The normally vivid coloring of Saint John & Mary's robes, red & ultramarine respectively, have been bleached out to create a theatrical highlighting of the figurative components in the overall composition. There is possibly a slight stylistic connection here to Fra Angelico's frescoes in the monk's cells at the monastery of San Marco in Florence ~ not too much of a surprise since Van der Weyden traveled to Italy in 1450 on a pilgrimage  & would have most likely seen the frescoes. This could explain the fresco-like tones of the robes & simplicity of composition as well as the small number of figures: Flemish paintings tended to have been more densely populated. I myself have always thought the diptych had an almost Spanish look to it. All of this is, of course, interesting but the primary reason I find this work fascinating is this ~ every single time I look at it, a little voice in my head asks: "Where the hell is the third panel?" For some reason my gut repeatedly says to me that there should be another panel on the right. I've done a pathetically small bit of research on this & most historians believe it to be a two panel work & some actually feel that the two panels may have once been the side wings to a carved central panel which makes even less sense as Mary's robes continue over to the crucifixion painting. Obviously these paintings were meant to be side by side but I continue to think there was once another panel on the right. 

Still, whether or not there's a missing right side, isn't it a striking work?      

Study of a Rose (The Flemish Primitives), 2009
digital scan

Portrait, 1984
Digitally scanned SX-70 photograph

Although atypical of the work I was making at the time, something about this photo has always intrigued me. I think it's the implied eroticism: the artificiality of the surface, the honey-colored skin tone & those slightly parted, perfectly edged lips with their gleaming highlights.

Study of a Head (after Yoshitoshi), 2007

Study of a Woman (after Yoshitoshi), 2007

Study of a Woman (after Yoshitoshi), 2007

Study of a Woman (after Yoshitoshi), 2007

Study of a Head (after Yoshitoshi), 2007

Apollo, 1984

These are, again, scanned SX-70 photographs; in fact, any pictures that show up here with a date in the 80s were taken with a Polaroid camera. The biggest problem with all of these SX-70 pictures was that the photos had polyester film as a protective surface & were very prone to scratches, often emerging fresh from the camera with a few scrapes on the surface. I recently showed these to a friend who was quite surprised at the high quality of the color; most instant pictures tend to rapidly yellow & fade but fortunately these were all put into boxes & kept out of the light for the past twenty five years so have retained that painterly, somewhat excentric & unpredictable color we all loved.

Naiads, 1983

Sumo Study, 1983

Baseball Study, 1983

Baseball Study, 1983

Baseball Study (Diptych), 1983

Seven Sumo Studies (Portraits), 1983

These were all taken in 1983 directly from a rather small Panasonic television screen with an SX-70 camera: I had torn the ligaments in my right ankle & couldn't get around so it began as something to simply alleviate the boredom of the invalid. To eliminate room reflections I would drape a piece of black fabric over the TV & myself creating an effect much like a photographer using an old 8 by 10 view camera which at the time I found extremely amusing. The colors are all the result of manually fiddling with the color, tint, brightness & contrast dials on my ancient television set since this was before the advent of photoshop or for that matter the personal computer. I often suspect that the brilliant colors were also, in part, due to the fact that the tube was about to die on me. I've never been able to get quite the same effects on any other set I've owned.

Garden Study, 2009