Gundam Style........

I started on an ecommerce site where the prints would be available for sale.  I will sell the
originals for $250 and reproductions (giclee/ink jet prints) for $100.......limited edition.

Today I will be back on Gov Island to work on the panorama piece......and I will be around all day Saturday for the open studio........stop by if you like..........

E_commerce site soon!

Today is a catch up day for me........run errands.....clean up.......get organized........I am going to set up an e-commerce site if anyone would be interested in purchasing a print from this series.......more on this soon..........

continuous print.....

I worked on this yesterday.....it is meant to be a continuation of the work I am doing at the residency........I will bring that work together with this one by connecting pieces today.  Again the idea of this project is to create a continuous print where one piece leads to another.......

summer.........

water....sky..........flying.......

I started with the setting here......built the figures into the two horizontal bands........

Another Daughter.

Another Daughter

One who leaves
One who stays

Impressions left behind as the wandering continues westward
Held tight a memory fades into hope
Laden with commitment, desire, responsibility
Caught by those seeking shelter

Letting go is hard
Up into the wind, swirling to oblivion

I watch it go, cannot remember
The one that moved on
The one that stayed.

untitled

Today's print.........

I was on Governors Island today for an open studio.......met some new people and did a printing demo outside the studios.  It was a nice day there........to one side there was a pretty impressive poetry reading thing with 4 stages and on the other side was the Merry-go-Round display.  This is a great NY thing......lots of people interested in the arts.....

connecting pieces.

The top print was made this morning........then thought of trying a "connecting" piece.......I think the 2 print idea works well in this case.

Today is catch up day.........get to all the loose ends for the week......clean the kitchen!  Finish priming canvas that has been waiting for attention..........everywhere I look I see another project.......

Last night I saw a performance at Lincoln center in the city called Murmurs.....truly brilliant and inspiring.......

multiples

July 26th print.......

added 2 more panels to this piece......

I am going to begin another of these multiple panel pieces at the Governors Island studio and will post tomorrow..........

2 directions........

Today's print above and the 2 paintings I started on Governors Island as part of the residency.  I have yet to reconcile the 2 styles......the paintings take on a more formal style for some reason, I am just going with it at this point.  On the horizontal painting I am trying use the primary hue as the tone modulating the darks without adding and allowing the whites to create the forms......to give it a pastel or softer effect.......

Arches........

Today's print.......I am running back to the city studio today to do a bit of painting.......on Saturday I will print there - work on the prints in series idea........

This is the print in series so far........four 22 x 30 images......I plan to continue this work to the left of the images shown here...........I am thinking some kind of arch continuing for the next four panels......

Side by side

This image is 2 prints side by side. I am thinking of trying to make larger pieces by continuing the forms, such as the yellow space at the top which are combined here, into larger pieces.

The idea is for each piece to be able to stand on its own, only simple compositional elements will hold the piece together.  I am thinking a final grid of 15 rectangles in a 5 x 3 grid but I think this will happen organically.

This is a difficult set of parameters for me to work with........I usually do not have any constraints on the process, it will be interesting to see if I can keep it going.......I will post the results........

One

One

If you succeed
Can the memory be erased
Move on
Allow forgiveness

Two

Repent all you sinners
Give your stuff to me
I will forgive you
And take real good care of it

Three

Nights go by
Darkness
Solitude
When you are one.

Massive Gravity........

So yesterday I got on a whole riff about what gravity is.....yep the force gravity.....and how time and space relate to forces which effect us.  Wound up having a physics conversation with the paper salesmen at NY Central Art Supplies about this, trying to separate science fiction from possibility.

Always had a thing for how gravity works and if there was some mechanism to control or comprehend this force for some reason.........my thing is that it somehow relates to time, and if linear time can be distorted or stretched in some way that gravitational forces would be able to be mitigated........and that somehow it has something to do with mass.........

Anyway wouldn't it be cool if in the center of a black hole there was no gravity, the opposite of the idea that it would have almost infinite gravity......that somehow the density had a reverse or inverse effect...........

Busy!

A busy week just past.......all with 100 degree heat.........Tuesday a printmaking class, Wednesday a photo class (which I taught) Thursday live painting at a vineyard in Smithtown, and today I trip to the city in the heat...........

I made my first painting at the residency.......I will post the results Sunday........then on Sunday I will start a couple of mural size paintings for which I purchased the materials this afternoon............

This print.......actually painting direct.......is on the stone paper, which I found out today is 80 percent calcium carbonate and 20 percent plastic to hold it together............

Photograph a wedding tomorrow morning..........collapse tomorrow evening.......still in a constant state of being broke...........ah the artists life............

Three

These are the 3 "states" of today's print.  The original idea was to create a very simple image today.....just the yellow background and the green shape.....leaving the white of the paper in the background.  I am not sure why I put the blue in, perhaps I thought it was a bit "thin" looking.
For some reason I did not feel that the composition was strong enough to call it a morning, and overprinted a magenta in the top area and a second layer of yellow in the bottom field.  I used the roller to recreate the shape, and paper towel to maintain the highlights in the figure area.
Again, it looked flat to me and decided to go with one more layer. I rolled blue above and used a brush for the yellow area above......After wiping out the area for the figure again, I decided to create a second figure which would just remove this new layer of color to reveal the colors from the previous layers....

different paths.......

I went to see the Turrell show at the Guggenheim......it is worth it to see the one piece......pretty much the whole museum is taken up with it......

I spoke to one of the guards about my idea for the space......and he thought it was pretty cool.......told the same idea to a friend and she thought it was performance, not art......so not I have to process this and try to figure if the idea is any good.

Criticism has that effect, it makes you rethink.......and for me also makes me doubt the path I am on.......you would think at this point I would be over this.  I can think back over the years how many times I have abandoned a path because of someones opinion, and just how silly that was.

When I first started I did pen and ink works, I was told that no gallery would ever show my work if I only did black and white........this did send me into a long learning curve and some interesting work, I wonder if this would have happened if not for that meeting.......

Resident.

Yesterday I went to the studio I will be working from on Governors Island for the next month or so....met a few of the artists......I am looking forward to getting started there.  Today I am teaching a printmaking class, tomorrow a photography class......
On Thursday I will be doing a live painting event in Setauket.......pretty eclectic week.......hopefully I can get focused on painting again soon......

Googling!

Last night I came up with a fun idea......it is called "Googling".  The idea is you arbitrarily choose 2 words, they can be related or random, and type them into the search engine.  Try to find a cool result from the search and post it online........any social media........I am thinking if there was a site like Twitter people could post the results and their "Google Words".........this could be a pretty fun thing to do with the computers......don't you think?

Time.....

As we look at an image......a still image.......we are moving through time.  Interesting concept, we think of something as a single thought, yet we are forming that thought in time, and letting it go or holding onto it a moment later......

I am looking at todays piece this way.......one moment I fix on a certain area and create a narrative in  my mind, then move on to another point in space to see if there is a relationship or another whole narrative emerging.

I think this idea of the unfixed narrative is an interesting concept I have thought about but not really verbalized.  An idea that everything is in a constant state of flux........much like music which flows from a basic structure but is really not held onto from moment to moment....

Birds of Paradise........

So I was watching this video this morning about sea birds eating plastic that winds up into the ocean and is undigested in their systems....somehow this piece makes me think of that video........it seems to me this is something we as a people can fix.......just make the plastic biodegradable.........has to be a way to fix this one if we all work together........

Start the residency on Governors Island this week.......not sure what I am going to do.......I will bring some things to get started and see what happens.......maybe make some "plein air" prints there........

Teaching a bit this week also........a printmaking class and a photography class........

Residency on Governors Island

Hi,
I will be starting a residency on Governors Island in NYC in a week or so for the months of July and August as part of the 4Heads Art Fair.  I will be printing from there, and start a project of sculpture that I have been thinking about for a while...........more on this to come.........

Is Great What?

Is there a way to tell if one art is better than another?  Is there such a thing as talent?  What are the criteria for great art versus everything that is not great?

What is criticism........is it objective or subjective?  Does the critic have some knowledge which validates their opinions?

Is beauty something that can be quantified?  Can change be motivated from an exterior force or does it have to come from the individual as that person evolves.........

All questions pondered in conversations yesterday.........all stuff to consider......

Know

So what do we know?

I think we can be pretty certain that anyone who tells us stuff they have no way of knowing are pretty much full of themselves and really are just looking for power.

I think we know that if we keep Fracking the lands under the watersheds eventually there will be a horrible accident where thousands if not millions will die.  And the land will become unusable for generations........ can you refute this?

You cannot sustain spending more than you make for very long until you are indebted for a very long time.  The owner of the debt has power over you and can control your life.

The earth is a closed ecosystem.

If there is a spirit world, and that is a big if, we have no idea what is going on there or how it relates to what is happening there.  At best we can speculate.

If there is no spirit world, we better get our shit together as a species or we will wind up wiping ourselves out.

Hmm anything else?  I went to Lincoln Center in NY yesterday and saw Monkey, Journey to the West......a spectacular event showing some of the best mankind can offer......pretty cool.

second print today.........

Newsday mention from LAF July 7..........

 This is a painting I did at Live art Fusion, a live painting event, on Sunday July 7th......there was a reporter from Newsday and she posted this in the article........

The band begins -- a single saxophone riff -- and painter Michael Krasowitz, 55, of Huntington, draws a thin line of yellow across his canvas. As the music, a lively improvised jazz, builds and falls, Krasowitz’ painting evolves into a vibrant abstract of colors and shapes, as much open to interpretation as the music that inspired it.
“The music can change and the art can change,” Krasowitz said. “The idea of having to react to something spontaneously, that’s what really makes it happen.”
On Sunday, the Heckscher Museum in Huntington welcomed local artists to draw inspiration from live musical performances at the Live Art Fusion outdoor music and art event at Heckscher Park.
“We’ve had events that use music, but they were always separate,” Sarah Salamone, Heckscher Museum school program coordinator, said. “This was a way to bring them both together; music while creating.

This is today's print.........July 9, 2013. 

Be one of Us........

So today I am thinking about conformity.....the need to fit in to a set of rules which somehow define us. In yoga there is a correct way to do a pose........who defined this? A religion says that you cannot show affection in public....so people become ultimately unhappy to conform to some arcane rule.
The big question, I think, is why is important to create these parameters for behavior? And is there a way to identify these rules we place upon ourselves and how they effect ourselves and the people around us.
Can we consider how these self imposed rules effect those around us, and can we become open to other points of view, or does intollerance eventually lead to the dissolution of personal relationships and eventually society?

live painting

Today I will be painting live.....an event where musicians perform and artists paint improvisationally to the music.........
At Heckscher Park in Huntington NY from 12 to 4 pm.........it will be really hot!  Literally around 90 degrees, not sure how long I will last but stop by if you like.

Finished Brave New World last night........great book.......

This print was one of the larger sheets of paper.......the ink dried while I was making it , probably the heat......and I could not get a print.....so I rewet the ink with the base medium and was able to get most of the ink off........I was thinking of overprinting one more time.......I will look at it in a couple of hours to decide......

Exquisite Corpse'''''''

played the exquisite corpse game last night.......these are the results.......

She Held my Destiny in Her Heart

And she Rose above the nonsense
Only to find herself
Lost in the Calm

A salamander knows the difference
Red sky, Quiet Wind

And they went grazing
To find the answers

Glass.......everywhere.
Ancient Ritual
Fortune told by an ancient warrior
Held before the fire
Solitude

Lemon hues
Saturated the mountain and......
Everyone was happy.

It is not knowing,

It is beginning to be embraced by the comforts of
Peace is all I can ask for.........Madness

Imitates the profusion to the bottom
Of my soul and the
Rectangles
Took
Over

The space...............

Oz.

Independence day........

Who doesn't fear the tyranny of the police state?  Is it OK for the military in Egypt to take over the government, even if there are massive demonstrations?  Couldn't they just have new elections?
Can we really feel ok that this Snowdon fellow cannot reveal a massive secret spying by our own government which directly effects the rights of individual citizens?

Just found out France is doing the same thing.......France! the one place I thought would be above spying on their own people.......ugh!

Sorry to go on a political rant, and I hope it does not turn off anyone from the images......but on a day where people fought for freedom I fear for the future of such an important idea to the age old propaganda of fear.......

Kansas

This one makes me think of a windy open field for some reason......my imaginary Kansas........

 This is the plate for the print I created today. What you see is the remains of the ink that was not transferred. 

 I started this painting yesterday.  I begin with the linework, then create the forms I see from the lines and try to comprehend the composition as it emerges.......

This is the setup where I stretch the linen.  I make sure everything is square first and will hand stretch before using the glue and primer..

sometimes........

Sometimes

Sometimes you just have to let things be..............

july1

4 Play

Whiskers, blades of grass, solitude
Impressions, breath, glow
Busy doing this and that
Agree to not be so impressionable

Rolling down a hill
Finding which way is up
Smart people talking
Intently about this and that