The website is officially live as of two days ago. During the day I spent the majority of my time tightening up any loose ends in preparation for publication. This included finalizing the concept and implementing the design of the logo which I’m really pleased with.
Now that I’m almost 48 hours from having published the website I can put the majority of that project behind me. There is of course infinite maintenance and more catalog items (paintings!) to produce however it’s important to let this thing simmer out there in the google-sphere for some time now. Despite having approximately ZERO traffic since the launch I am optimistic that I will get a steady flow of organic traffic here in the building on account of my domain and SEO skills - as well as referring visitors from social media and YouTube. So really in some sense the work is just beginning but a large portion of the infrastructure has now been constructed.
Last technical note to expand on (if anything just to reinforce the point to myself) is that I need to start building some backlinks to the site from both my other site www.maxlowtide.com as well as from Magdalene’s and maybe even the gallery for now. If I am worked back into the fold with the mural contractors here in Houston, Texas I will also be trying to finesse a few backlinks from them (in the meantime I will not name them nor their site). Okay now to what is important:
There was been a decent bit of painting, painting experimentation and painting theory in the past two days. Where to begin. Two nights ago I made a painting on paper that I was quite pleased with. I haphazardly made a little composition sketch in my notebook that I liked and translated it onto oil paper with Sakura and then blocked it in with oil paint. It was the same problem as last time in that I was painting in a very constrained way - like a coloring book - but this time it felt more appropriate because at least the design and composition had been thought through more thoroughly. In that sense the work felt more like an illustration or at least very design-y. But that's okay.
I would like to continue with these Sakura experiments on paper - from imagination - but in a more spontaneous and expressive way when it comes to the paint handling. This brings me to my next theme - I have been spending a lot of time steeped in my books - both my art theory and my more visual art books. I am constantly burdened by thoughts of “the work I should be making”. For example with this painting I just described, that I actually like, I am thinking things like “this is too constrained - this is too much like an illustration - this isn't like Matisse - something like this could never aspire to be a major work.” I very much feel the cliche of painting in the shadow of the giants who came before me.
I also notice this tendency within myself to absorb, too much, the last painter I looked at. So if I just closed my Aryz book and when I walk into my studio I will for sure be thinking about Aryz when I make my work - or now at least be comparing what I’m doing with that genius. Which needless to say is extremely unproductive and dangerous. I have been aware of this fact within myself as a painter for a very long time. For this reason I need to operate extreme discretion with who, when, what I expose myself to when I am in the throes of lots of productivity in the studio.
Nevertheless I will prevail both with my own paint experimentations as well as with my pursuit of art theory and forging a new vision. There is a very similar small composition I drafted up in my notebook that I will translate in paint later today or this weekend. I will share it here so you can see what I am working with. I sense immense potential here with the Sakura and the oil paint. I just need to find a more expressive balance between the two mediums that does not devolve into “painting within the lines”. However for this present composition I am working on its very much more of a tight design that wouldn't lend itself as successfully to expressionistic paint handling, or would it…?
Speaking of expression, yesterday after visiting the Museum of Fine Art Houston I went home and made a very loose painting of the Jazz scene I had described about in this paint diary from last week. I’m really not sure if I like it or not, and ultimately the small size of the Arches paper felt extremely constraining (despite the fact that this is my big Arches paper measuring at 12 x 16 inches - which is big for me). I tried my best to truly loosen up and “forget” everything, including the art history giants whose shadows I live under as well as the more general ideas of good and bad painting.
Painting abstractly is so much more vulnerable. It's really interesting. There is literally zero vulnerability to publicly sharing a 20 hour rendering in oil paint of a Whataburger bag, it’s just a perpetuation of the technique flex that I’ve described so often on my other website www.maxlowtide.com. It's this expressive style of painting, or its logical conclusion of abstraction, that so exposes oneself.
I have been feeling more drawn to abstraction, I suppose this too was always my logical destination anyway. I have written on my other website that I am immersed in the cliche of “learning the rules in order to break them.” - which again ultimately leads to a path of full (at least partial) deconstruction. When I was at the MFAH yesterday I was looking at two Lee Krasners and a new (just put out) Picasso. The Krasner's were so powerful and aesthetic. Today I will perhaps return to look at these paintings again. I stood in front of the Picasso for a long while trying to think of a profound and original thought about the way in which the painting was moving me and could not. I will try again today or tomorrow. Yesterday was an off day anyway I couldn't really get the plane off the ground for the entire day.
0 comments