Excuses excuses.. I was here and then I was not.
We reined in a Mustang convertible to take us from San Francisco, to Fresno, San Diego and back through Big Sur. Like any tour, I am still collecting myself now that I am back in New York. I have so many lovely memories and more freckles. In short, I was invigorated by the work of Mark Bradford at SFMoMA, affected by the lifelong dedication it takes to conjure a cool underground oasis from a plot of hard pan at Forestiere Gardens and relish San Diego's most Spanish/Baroque parts. So now I am on an Early California kick, reading Brassai's account of Henry Miller's Paris years, editing photographs and hoping to replicate life Deetjen's style.
Happy Mother's day!
Observe for today and every other, kiddies.. Extra love to my very dear black-eyed Susie Bloom, wish you were over here to wonder, wander with. What we do.
I am off soon to meet and talk about a commission. A family portrait, like this one I did for the Pitman family. This one was easy as they like to dress up and fool around. Bella's super cape billowed as she had a tendency to stand over subway grids to get some uplift from train exhaust. She is a showgirl at heart. And Ona, their dog is tortured repeatedly thus. Not much invention was required on my part at all.
I just got a note from a framing shop in Brighton, England. They have my Musical Chairs tea towel, a limited edition from third drawer down, framed in their window. And it's getting plenty of attention.
I went to college there for a spell in my third year of college. Exquisitely painful memories of the wind passing right through me and cold baths, an exacting tutor with purple eyes.. and then the thrill of seeing Steven Berkoff in a car whizzing past, learning to etch with acid and goose feathers with my giggly friend from home, Clark, and hiding in my sketchbooks. I learnt to relish the ballast of English life and the relief that comes with making work. I think of those days when I hear the songs of Peggy Lee, see a rickety pier, or a shimmering silver patch on a grey sea.
I have every intention of making this into a print and sending it off to sell by the seaside.
