in it again...
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...
......
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:
......
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...
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...
......
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:
......
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...