Collaborativo

Well, why has it taken so long for me to follow up on my Canada post with the collaborative painting that Mali and I did while I was there? Well, I've been letting my hair grow out and I've taken up pen-and-ink correspondence for the majority of my missives and getting the right feathers for my new hat... MON DIEU!

...and these shoes! You surely can't suppose they came from some, "shoe store?"

I've been into the mid-seventeenth century Dutch painters of late, finding bits, mainly the textiles covering the tables, to incorporate into my own paintings; learning a bit more about that whole milieu. This painting is Gabriel Metsu's, "Man Writing a Letter," from the National Gallery of Ireland (presently it's in D.C. for a Metsu show - I WANT TO GO). Right now I'm taking a break with Hikaru no Go, but otherwise, have been pouring over Metsu and de Hooch with a little Ochterveldt and Mieris thrown in.

Reading as well as looking at pictures, yes. A little annoying how little is known about these artists from such recent history, and how little is known about many aspects of life of the period, but that's an interesting aspect of history: how little we do know and how little can be even extrapolated with certainty. The removal of biographical information, however, does make it possible to look at the pictures in their own lights, as it were - no Picasso to separate from the Picassos. The scholarship seems interesting, though, regarding the period in which Metsu, et al. lived and worked, so of course my reading list has gotten longer.

Tangent city.

Anyway, here's the painting Mali and I did when I was in Calgary.

This is a good example of how little a photograph can tell you about a painting. The long, green streak is a pretty thick drip and some of the squares on the right side (some of which aren't visible) are lozenges formed with acrylic medium. Sneaky Mali started taping the side for squares just when I was coming in to paint the figure, so we hashed it over an made some space, so that part is odd for me since it isn't conceptually where or exactly how I would have put it in my own work, but it ended up well balanced - I was going for something kind of David Salle.