painting candles and reading Simone Weil

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the physical element by which sight is made possible: light.



she says: Love is not consolation, it is light. (p. 59)


to love is to see.
and to see clearly. plainly even.
no disruptions, to desires, no figments, no fantasy, no lies: to see something as it actually is without the governance of desire or protocol, without imposition, alliances, biases, expectations... without silencing

or dulling the color.

light:

we find the shape, the texture, the angle. the light does not promise we will like what we see. the light does not promise pleasantries. the light does not speak of "likability" and "pleasurability". the light says nothing about preferences.

Love is not consolation... and so love is not about satisfying preferences.

...it is light a new lens given, love is the ability to see reality: unmisted, unobstructed.

mmmmmmmm

i've been at the canvas since 9. i am present and don't care about the clock. there was something i was going to do today but decided painting all day is a much better decision. i am young today. i am brewing a half pot of coffee. i am thinking about evelyn hampton. this piece in particular. it has a familiar light in it. there is a reverie that swells up, all achy and maroon, from the the repetition of words. and somewhere in there is a piece of my childhood too.

note to self:

there's no such thing as a perfect painting. it isn't even about that. perfection is boring. there's no mystery. no search. no struggle. no discovery. it isn't effective. or affective either. perfection has no function. it is already solved. it is isolated and requires nothing. it has no needs. it has no desires. it is uninteresting.

smear it

oil everywhere. fanatical. taken in. taken deep and getting lost. but that's how maps are made. stumble. stumble. stumble. it's still a procession. it still counts. i don't know the name of the road and so what.

how quickly

i am deep inside one of the maid portraits this morning. oil sliding sliding sliding. i have 3 big canvasses in the final stages that have been waiting patiently for my attention for almost 2 months, breathy sigh and all. i took a long break from my ladies because i realized i was putting too much pressure on them, on myself, to be something they aren't. and so, with all these weeks of drawing, thinking, writing, reading under my belt, i'm seeing them again as they are, as they are meant to be, no pressure, no assumption, no expectation, no ridicule, no mean spirited judgement. and so i go and blend blend blend their skin, their dresses, their aprons. they sigh and whisper under the brush. they bend and nudge and allow their nuances to be found. such love. my lovely ladies. beautiful beautiful.

work, work, work

the day is bright already and there is a feeling in it... something in the light that makes me want to take pictures and dress up all silly and become, once and for all, the small town freak. whenever i walk through town (which isn't very often), i get stared at a lot and i think it might be the silver sequined shoes i wear. they're quite blinding in the sun. they're awesome. and i got a new pair of blue sequined shoes but i'm waiting to break them in til the weather gets a bit less wet. they are not puddle-jumping shoes. i need a pair of those yellow rubber rain boots. i've always wanted a pair of them. i'd wear them everyday, all winter long, sequined shoes underneath.

i'm getting ready to brew a second pot of coffee. i've already spent two hours painting. it's the perk of painting in-doors... especially in the kitchen: you get right to it. and, after a few days of looking at the photograph of the most recent painting, i decided it is not done after all. i cheaped out on the background. all that work on the aprons becomes meaningless if i allow myself to take a short-cut somewhere else. so i've been working on the background again and it's already so much more full than it was before. i am much much MUCH more pleased. i just needed a few days away from it, some distance to see what was really going on. it's a beautiful painting and i will do my best to honor it. no short-cuts. struggle, struggle, struggle away until i get it right. winter gives me the time.

good morning

i need to make myself a pair of mittens. the cold actually hurt me this morning when i went outside to write. in fact, i couldn't stay outside on my little stoop in front of the cottage for more than 5 minutes. and for that 5 minutes, i traded my cup of coffee back and forth between my two hands to warm them up and thaw the hurt. a hard winter has come. i knew it would. and if it's this cold at the beginning of december, january will be a horror.

yesterday after a good couple of hours painting, i rearranged the living room to use an entire wall for the maid portraits. i've got them all together and they look so beautiful. i'm seeing them with fresh eyes. even the problem child of the group (and there's always a problem child) is gorgeous and i can see the direction i must take her in. it feels good to be listening again. to work. it's the moment when i am truly myself. freedom. and love. and i wouldn't trade this job for any other. no amount of money or prestige or possession will ever seem as beautiful, as necessary as this work. nothing could lure me away. this is my life. and it's all i want.

here's your sign, stupid...

if painting was a person...
if poetry was a person...

she'd be tall and gorgeous and when her hips swung when she walked down the street, feet hitting the pavement hard with that super-model stomp, a theme song would fly out from the hem of her skirt. most likely 'simply irresistible' by robert palmer. she'd send Dear John letters off to her legion of faithful lovers almost daily and she wouldn't for one second tolerate any bullshit. she'd be a little snotty and a lot sassy and she'd say things like "who the fuck are you to try and tell me what i can and can't do". and she'd flip you off on the freeway and she'd tell you where you can shove it. and when you came to her place in the middle of the night, driven crazy by how much you love her and by the truth that you'll never be good enough for her, to apologise for asserting your trifling needs and desires, you'd be greeted by a sign on her door much like this one-


warning
11" x 7.5"
gouache on paper
angela simione, 2009


currently hanging in my little studio to remind me what is what and who is whose bitch. :)

what is painting?

i suppose it all comes down to how one defines it. it's much more than merely applying paint to a surface. much, much more. if it weren't, it'd be no different than re-painting your bathroom walls or your car or any old thing. there's something else, something more, something hard to pin down and hold still about painting that really doesn't have much to do with paint.

but whatever it is, it's something i try to do every single day.

i swayed back and forth between two big oil paintings for the better part of the day, played with my inks for a bit, read a few poems out of Sharon Olds' 'the gold cell', wrote and researched and wrote some more and then made this-


mama (7)
11" x 7.5"
water-soluble graphite and gouache on paper
angela simione, 2009


number 7 in this series. rolling along pleasantly. :) these little paintings make me happy and fill me up with hope. they feel like day-dreams to me... little gems.

the dance...

after an amazing weekend of printing and land-sailing (yes, LAND sailing! my first time and so completely fun and scary!), painting takes priority today. The Jog will have to wait until this afternoon. an iffy decision on my part but i've got to spend as many hours in the studio today as i can possibly stand. the painful final moments of a painting has arrived- the staring, scrutinizing, debilitating critique of a piece. lay down a single mark then back up as far away from the work as possible and look for what comes next. it is a slow dance but entirely necessary and this painting deserves the best i've got. and so the torture of critiquing my technical abilities will be endured and the anguish of meeting my limitations will commence. the painting requires it. this awful stage is what nourishes the work as a whole and i've got no say in the matter. when it's over, i'll be thankful. i'll be endless in my happiness and i'll feel nothing but sheer gratitude toward the process. this is the learning curve. every canvas is a learning curve. i'll always be a stumbling student, humbled by the enormous expanse of what there is to learn about art, painting, composition, technique, etc, etc, etc. today, i feel completely novice... but it's okay. i suppose one should always feel this way. it keeps the heart in a state of longing and, as far as art in concerned, that's the right place to be.

blackening...

all morning i've been painting and taking a red pen to poems-in-progress. there's some pretty good stuff in that stack... i'm just not sure how to make them really shine. i've let them breathe long enough and would like to get back to work on them. it feels like it's been a long time since i "seriously" wrote something. if i've ever really been serious about it, i'm not sure, but this time last year there was such a huge fire in my belly and i had to write it out. now, i sift ashes, looking for fragments worth dusting off, polishing and re-planting somewhere else.

i suppose a poem is never quite perfect and i spend a lot of time beating myself up about that fact, thinking it's only my poems that are never perfect and that maybe if i was smarter or prettier or frailer or anything-er, the poems would be better. silliness.

and i turned one of my paintings black. i was nervous to do it but i'm glad i went ahead and got brave. there's a mood now in the work and an availability for a wide open narrative that i really like. in fact, i'm thinking of making it blacker... like a super underexposed photograph or a memory you can't quite see... just feel.

re-visiting...

sometimes it helps to go back to the beginning... when you were naive and didn't know it. there was something special in those days, in that approach. something valuable and worth reaching back to.

i brought an older painting of mine back in to the studio to keep me company and remind me to slow down- to pay attention, to approach the canvas with a greater sense of wonder, to not kid myself that i've got an unbreakable handle on this whole painting thing and to explore...



roman 1
10" x 10"
oil on canvas, 2006

when i made this painting, i moved hesitantly yes, but there was also a level of fearlessness because i knew the greater possibility was that i'd screw up. i felt no pressure to aspire to anything other than learning. and the goal of learning should never leave an artist of any kind.

with this little boy hanging on the wall next to my 'in-progress' canvasses, i am moving slowly today; thoughtfully... appreciatively. and reminding myself also that...


nathan coley

...just hard work and a refusal to stop trying.

this labor...

3 hours of painting... time for a break... clear my eyes.

i look at the paintings on my walls and they are good: they look back.
they say, "keep going! make more!"

i am trying, girls. trying hard
to birth your sisters...
moving slowly,
keeping the strain at bay...
i am trying hard the push them out...

crawling along...

feeling a bit under the weather... i think all the excitement and drama of the past few days did me in. ugg. and i missed First Thursdays as a result. double ugg.

but i've finally collected 100 hearts at my shop! yay! it makes me feel so good and i really appreciate all the support and interest i've been receiving the last couple of months. it means the world to me.

last night, i stayed up painting until about 3 am and it felt wonderful, working slowly and patiently. it feels like i've been talking about these oil paintings forever and am still pretty far off from being able to offer proof of their existence. i swear, they're real! i'll eventually get these beasts tamed.

the allure of books...

so...
i've been making these book pages every so often when i'm in the mood to paint or draw but don't want to start another big project. i've got too many going as it is. it's really just a way to indulge my romantic fascination with books and book-making and zines (i'm expecting a few more of those little sweeties in the mail this week! YAY!). hopefully, i'll one day end up in a place or mindset when i can really utilize this fascination toward my own aims but right now it's purely for fun and i have no clue what i'll end up doing with them. i'm happy to just watch the portfolio i've got them in get fatter and fatter. here's a few of my favorites:








they're all done on tracing paper that has been folded in half and then glued together. i liked being able to use the transparency of the paper to my advantage and work from every side of the paper, allowing marks made on the back to show through to the surface. gluing them together is what gives them this wrinkled, aged look that i really enjoy. the last one is yet another study for "witch of the bayou". i am such a nerd! :)

but you know, art for art's sake is always a good thing. i've got no real expectations other than using these pieces as a way to explore ideas and learn more about what books can be. so many of my favorite artists are print-makers and book-makers - kiki smith and anselm kiefer to name just two. i think there's such an enormous value in working within this format and i guess i'm currently exploring its limits and potentials. plus, i am completely in love with making little keepsakes and small, precious one-of-a-kind things.

artist books are awesome and one day i'll have enough of these pages to create my own. it seems natural given my complete love for the written word, text-based art, and the influence writers have had on my art practice in general.

i sold this painting a few days ago to a wonderful young woman and her husband. though i was sad to see it go, they seemed so appreciative of the work. it really touched me. it's such a great feeling to know that somthing i did will become a part of someone else's home. i didn't get a chance to get her name so... if you happen to stumble across this blog, thank you so much for your support. you made my day.