The Flaneur

Through some weird twist of fate I will not necesarily go into in depth, a 'self-made interview' re. moi appeared on The Flaneur, a British online pub.

Link here

Revisiting old works: Atacama then and now

Back in 2006 I cobbled the following painting together, and called it Atacama, a place I've only, alas, gotten to see the mere outlines of, thanks to a random outing to the city of Copiapo with family members 10 years before the creation of this work. I was not particularly remembering that particular outing, which involved hunting clams by the seashore on our way north, a storied and hilarious journey inside a creaky winnebago accompanied by step sibling Francisco (recently married... how time goes by...) the youngsters (one now completing passage at the Naval Academy ... time does go by indeed!), and Los Tres (tape deck.. no MP3s!! Ancient!!) , and plenty of cachaça and.. of course... red wine. Rather, something of the arid colours of the piece itself reminded me of the Northern Chile desert. I hadn't even thought about any of the other aspects of that trip until I sat down to relate this.

In any event, this 3 foot x 3 foot landscape begun as a school project for a Tim Flowers drawing class. Random driftwood was the subject matter, or, to be more exact, the picking of a subject matter and developing it across a whole semester. Anyone who know anything about me and Jim, it's that WE HAVE US SOME WOOD. This is part of the reason we are developing the concept of the Homily Stick, among other things - but I digress.* The drawing part (floating woods in a yellow-blue background) was something of a culmination of a semester's work - possibly uninteresting and unremarkable in itself as an artwork, but OK enough for a harried last-minute effort. The piece since then evolved when I affixed the finished, coloured drawing onto an abandoned canvas found on the side of the road of the never-forgotten Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur.

The piece lived on in this way for years until a sudden impulse of late led me to affix all sorts of whimsical details, glitter, fabric, decoupaging of all sorts. I was revisiting lots of old pieces - some which were frankly unresolved, some which required minor tweaking, others which I randomly decided needed revisiting, such as this one.

Part of the impetus was finally unearthing a lot of the random playing cards, bits of ribbon, old-timey Victorian calendars and other assorted hodgepodge that artists tend to acquire in hopes that someday they will fit onto a piece - and the truth is, the original image always looked a bit plain, a bit severe to me. I feel I managed to integrate more of the background with the foreground, and added a bit of zip, zap and zing. I like the way the foreground was extended in the yellows, grounding the drawing more onto the wacky outer space quality of the original discarded canvas.

The last thing I want to do, as soon as I get some funds, is encase the whole thing in a layer of EnviroTek epoxy resin, though I balk at this seeing as the interaction of chemicals and elements can change things in unexpected - and sometimes undesirable - ways.

In any event, the new and improved version can be seen here.

*everyone forgive my trucculent and spacey prose - I must be undergoing an unfortunate Mercury transit.

How to heal a warped canvas

We all have experienced it: a favourite painting which humidity has its way with, and pretty soon is warped beyond all recognition.

I reached out to the Atlanta arts community for advice to help with this standard problem and the answers follow:

• Diane Hause: "I have been successful many times in similar cases: put the canvas facedown on a flat non-carpeted floor...take a wet sponge or cloth, and dampen (not soak) the backside of the canvas, the unpainted side. After doing this, place weights (heavy Art books work great) on the corners/sides of the wood stretchers and let dry."
• Tom Ferguson: "i once built a new larger, sturdier structure to screw to a warped painting... worked, but made it very heavy... i was trying to avoid re-stretching it on a stronger strainer but i'm afraid that's the best solution. putting a board on the back may provide a temp solution but likely would create more problems long-term. off the top o' me head"
• Mandie Turner Mitchell: "If that doesn't work i've applied gesso on the back of some and flattened them out. 50/50 water/gesso"
• Anita Arliss: "try adhering to the back large, thin plywood triangles in 4 corners (glue or nails) of the stretchers. Then dampen the backside of the canvas with water or 50/50 water/gesso. Weight it down on flat hard floor."

I am truly grateful for all the great advice - I have at least 2 canvases suffering this malady at present - am hoping one of these tips will work