Fishy Christmas

Well, Christmas is over and the last of the relatives have filed back home. I found myself with the holiday blues this year, despite throwing a big party and eating a lot of good food. I hope I'm not having an existential crisis, but it felt a little empty for me.

What rituals are left for the non-believer? It takes more work if you don't go with all the ready-made meaning and ritual provided by a belief system. And I didn't have the energy to re-invent meaning for myself this year. It could also be partly that I dearly missed being in California, and running on the beach as in Christmas's past.

Bracing for a look at my new year's resolutions traded with Sean last year at this time. I have his and he has mine..we are going to crack them open this weekend and see how we did in 2011.

Above by Paul Klee. Expect to see my own interpretation of this still life at some point in the not too distant future.

Sharon Core Blows Up

Alex and I went to see the Sharon Core show at Yancy Richardson on Tuesday. It was so fantastic I almost drooled on myself. I can't remember the last time I enjoyed something this much in a gallery. Why not just look at Dutch still life, you ask? Well, because this is better.

There much subtle and delicate play going on with the sets--luscious paint and real life all mixed up so it is hard to see where one ends and the other begins. I felt I was falling into the pictoral space as I peered and peered into them as they gave up more and more secrets. The compositions and colors are stunning. I am fairly sure that Sharon grew all these plants, because that is her process, as with the vegetables in the Early American series, and the baking she did with the Thiebaud series..

This kind of insane attention to detail and level of obsession can be off-putting, but not here. We are invited in, and the perfection seduces, and winks at us. This may be her best yet. Show is over at the end of the week. Hurry if you haven't already seen it.

Take Me Back, Blogger?

Well, I was hasty. As usual. I am not sure I can live with Tumblr. It is pretty useless with text. You can't even make a live link in text the High Res template I selected. And there's no menu! As Carolyn pointed out, that is super-lame. I'm really not finding the perfect photo-blog solution anywhere.. Thinking I'll do what Timothy Archibald suggested, and continue to use this blog for process stuff, but post the finished images on Tumblr. I can actually do that, and without too much procrastinating. Yes! Expect links to finished work on Tumblr sometime early in the new year.

In other words: I'm back. More soon. Sorry for the confusion.

Above photo shot last weekend, part of an experiment coloring in the shadows..Last time I tried black, this time yellow..