bassline

Three new pieces in progress. All: acrylic on panel, 24" x 24" Working on a bunch of new things in the studio these days. These are three of about 6 or 7 new pieces I've been working on and completed recently. The biggest change has been working with the rigid surface of the birch panels. I usually work on canvas, which feels very different to paint on since it's really flexible. The panels, on the other hand, has required a different approach to applying paint. I messed up one early on, but have managed to come back from that fairly easily. The trick was lay the paint on a bit thinner at the beginning than I was doing.

Along with the new paintings, I'm also working on some new mixed media pieces on paper featuring distressed photos. What I've done with the photos has been to abrade their surfaces with fine steel wool and sandpaper, creating some amazing color effects. I took a few of those over to the gallery this morning so Bridgette can take them up to New York next week.

She's including some of my work in the Red Dot-New York Art Fair next week. More info behind the cut:

( Tim McFarlane & the Bridgette Mayer Gallery at the Red Dot/New York Art Fair )

top (left): Breathing(Again), 2003, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48"
top(right): Inverted Dislocation, 2003, acrylic on canvas, 48" x 48"
bottom left: Blue Field, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72"
bottom right: Vertical Blues and Grays, 2003, acrylic on panel, 12" x 12''



Busy, busy weekend. Party on Friday night for E at my best friend's place and on Saturday and Sunday, I participated in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours once again. Over the two days I had about 18 visitors, maybe about half were first-timers, which was good. The advertising for the event is getting better every year, but October is a really busy month for events in the city. In addition, my studio is somewhat off the beaten track these days. More people have had to move to further reaches of the city to find affordable work spaces because of the real estate market.

Since most of my most recent work is in an exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Alliance, there wasn't much in new work to present, so out came some oldies, but goodies. it was a great time to pull out some older works and show them with the couple of newer paintings I had in the studio.

I don't always pull out older work and when I do, it's sometimes shocking to see what I've done. There are times when I'll look at an older painting and will have forgotten how it came together; I'll wonder how that artist came up with that painting, as if I were seeing it for the first time. On the other hand, other paintings cause me to be transported right back to the moments of the work's creation-I'll remember everything going on around me at the time; a bit of visual and mental time-traveling.

Oh, yeah, the dog days are amongst us and it's gonna get worse. The air outside is incredibly humid and thick day and night. So find a pool, jump in the ocean, or park yourself under the nearest air-conditioner 'cause it's not going anywhere any time soon...


South 17th, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 50"

In other news, busy is the word of the...well, my life, it seems. The photo above shows the commissioned painting mentioned here installed in the lobby of the Lofts at Logan View, located at 17th and Callowhill Sts.
The project includes works by myself and four other artists from the Bridgette Mayer Gallery: Allen Bently, Clark Gibson, Rebecca Rutstein, and Dierdre Murphy.

Click here to see images of the works installed.


Work continues on new paintings for the show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance this fall. I've completed a couple of smaller pieces and one large painting, but there's still a lot of work to be done. The next few weeks will be reserved for the other large works I have planned.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm getting married during all of this, too? Yep, first week of September. I'm working to get most of the pieces completed by then, but realistically, I'll be painting until a couple of days before I have to deliver the paintings. It just works out that way.

No worries, life is good...

Delivered the final four paintings to the gallery this morning. I'm incredibly happy that I've reached this point. I'm taking a couple of breaths this weekend before jumping into starting some new work for another show in the fall.

It's been an intense few months of getting all the paintings done and done to my satisfaction. I'm pretty happy with what I've done and I think I have some good ideas to pursue in the next body of work.

( speaking of the weekend... )

L: Float On II
R:Float On I
both are 60"x50", acrylic on canvas

These are two paintings I recently completed for a commission. I had a studio visit with the Bridgette and the client on Monday; the client chose the painting on the right, Float On II. Delivered it on Wednesday, the client loves it, and I got paid, so everyone's happy :) With that out of the way, I can concentrate more on my solo show coming up in June. I have some works done already, but I'll still be practically living in my studio for the next couple of months, not that I mind...

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Went to see '300' last night and enjoyed it. It's based on Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name. The graphic novel is pretty much reproduced panel for panel on the screen and it looks great. And that's pretty much the reason to see the movie-it's a gorgeous, sepia-toned blood and guts spectacle that rates high in eye candy and clunky, at best, with plot. While it's based on historical occurances, this isn't a history lesson; it's entertainment and it's best to see it as that.

If you want the history go here: Battle of
Themopylae

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Oh, man...it's been raining all night and since early this morning, there's been a constant downpour of sleet and I need to leave the apartment for a couple of errands and the studio...

I'm back in the studio regularly again and have been having a pretty fruitful time. A good thing, since the fall/winter is shaping up to be a busy one. At the same time, I've been becoming even more of a shutterbug. The camera is increasinly becoming like another appendage.

I arrived early on Friday morning to prepare for a 10am meeting with Bridgette so she could see some new work. These were taken before the visit...

(click on images to see larger sizes)

I'm back in the saddle again, painting-wise. I think I've successfully gotten rid of the cobwebs and dustbunnies that have been clogging up the creative pipeline over the past few months. Just in time, as I have a painting to finish for a show coming up in a couple of weeks. I should be done with it next week, if all goes well. I picked up the postcards and brochures today and need to get them out next week, also. I'd better get out the planner. The new paintings are coming along ok. That's the best I can say about them. I can never really tell what's happening with a work until I consider it 'finished'. Even then, I'm left with more question marks floating around in my head than answers. I guess I always see them evolving in my mind. I do see some as finished when I stop working on them. Often, though, I'll look at a painting and see places where I could have taken it. That's when I try to hold onto those ideas for future use.

I'm back in the studio painting again. It's taken me a while to get back into the groove of things, but the break was needed. It's actually been
6 months since I was active in the studio on a regular basis. That's an amazing amount of time based on my standards.

Creative breaks are good, though. Last year, I had 9 months of concentrated effort in preparation for my last show and I didn't realize just how intense it was until after the exhibition opened. I was still riding the adrenaline rush of getting everything together and thought I was ready to jump right back into things, but that wasn't the case. I found that while I had a lot of ideas I still wanted to pursue and the energy to do so, I wasn't with it mentally. Hence, the time off.

That time is over. I'm rested and ready to go at it again. Canvases are stretched, paints are replenished and I'm about to become a studio hermit again...

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A couple of random studio shots from yesterday...






These are a couple of new works in progress. I began these yesterday. They'll go through a few more changes before I'm done:




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I've been on another music buying spree lately. I've finally gotten around to getting some Elliot Smith cds. I remember liking his stuff during the late '90's but because his music became so popular and could be heard almost everywhere, I didn't bother buying any of it. That, and I was listening to a lot of jungle and drum 'n bass and didn't make room for much else in my listening habits. That's happened with me a lot, and I suspect others as well. You'll latch onto a certain sound, groove, artist, whatever, and just go with it for a while.

A certain sound may catch my ear for a time, but never to the exclusion of other things. I've always had a love of searching out new music. It's a habit I developed years ago and it hasn't abated over time. I can almost pinpoint the moment when I began seeking out new sounds.

I grew up listening mainly to what's now old-school r 'n b and funk (James Brown, Marvin Gaye, the O'Jays, Smokey Robinson, Bootsy Collins, P-Funk, and beyond). The only radio station to listen to for us was WDAS-FM. I remember the summer when the morning show always included a playing of Bill Wither's 'Lovely Day' every morning around 8am. That was a great start to the morning, especially when school was almost over for the summer, you were already having summer fever and did not want to waste those precious, sunny mornings in a hot classroom...

Hearing George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic was the initial corruption, then I heard Prince's Soft and Wet on the radio, which led me to Jimi Hendrix, which led me to AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and other rock acts...I missed the 70's punk scene altogether. I just wasn't exposed to it and it wasn't being played on mainstream American radio at the time. I wouldn't discover college and underground radio stations for a few years. When I think about it, the rawness of rock guitar playing got me hooked on certain sounds and my curiosity just went from there.

I still have the first cassette tapes I made from the radio which had some Led Zeppelin and AC/DC on it. That was around 1980...

Looks like I have another entry in the making here...tracing the developement of my listening habits over time...