last days in LA

painting is just 2 weeks away... hands are itching to feel the brush again.
enjoying last few moments before the final move to painting paradise.

Shifting

from the observatory taken winter 2005 Sunset over Los Angles
©2007 ckw

So soon the new art will be here and on Impression of the Day blog.
Packing, preparing the cabin for full time residency, wrapping up the life in LA,
Can't wait to get back to clean air, open spaces, a whole floor of my home is my studio.
hands covered in oils..
And only seeing color - not even objects just color and shape against color and shape :)
Hope everyone is enjoying the new year :)

Impression Jan 1980

apples ala Sergi, done Dutch style
oil in linen
11 x14"
1980
private collection of the artist
I was seventeen , just about to turn 18 , when i had my scholarship with Sergi Bongart.
he had taught me he said all he knew and wanted me to explore other artist and gave me so many assignments to follow. This one was find a dutch master still life painter and copy they style of it, then to bring it into the next class. There was no place in my mom's house to paint ~no room, I remember sitting on the edge of the couch, in front of the TV with on a small table next to it. the set up... and the painting held by my left hand pallet in my lap.




















detail

New Day, New Year, New Life

I welcome the New Year with open arms.
Packing is foremost, clearing out a lot of old portfolio work from Entertainment Art Direction work. That! Feels very good :).

It's funny i have never had one movie poster i designed displayed any where in my house, even the award winning ones…. It has always been the enjoyment of the puzzle of how to get someone interested in watching the film and i was fortunate, I had good instincts and had a few successes with that, plus i think my artistic training and skills added to what i bring to the table in that industry.

Not much to say right now, more words will come later ~then the canvas will take my words away for a while. I will be filled with color and oils and brush strokes and light.


•~•

It is funny, now that i am a bit more mature i want to discuss art and I do have things to say.

When i was younger and first selling my work and having openings thrown by people and for me and i was asked what was my intent behind a still life of apples? Or the portrait the gay cowboy ~i was so appalled by the audacity for the need of explanation~ to me it was self evident. I was painting the beauty around me, trying to wake up others to it as well. Giving a window in wall where only TV was focused on before, or a shiny new car as the prized possession.

I often would refuse to go to my unveilings and private parties thrown in my honor. It seemed absurd to me. It was the simple thing of ~ i paint, you commission or purchase and you get from my painting what you will.

I see now though i was such a rebel in my own unique way, painting in the style of old masters at the mere age of 17 when it was fashionable to put vomit on a canvas and call it art. Or to enamel a toilet red and say it was worth 20,000 dollars because of the “concept” and yet they could not draw a stick figure.

THIS is why i stepped away when my paintings were selling very well top private collectors and then one of them ~ an art director, illegally it turns out~ without my permission put it in a movie that made my very selective collectors upset to see their artist, their similar pieces, in a comedy of an actor whose reputation was not that high at the time...

Also when a painter began to copy my work almost verbatim to the point friends were calling me congratulating me on my cover in a prominent newspaper calendar section when it wasn’t mine. And i have been painting the subject matter and style for years before then and the other straw~i had some of my prized private collection stolen from my studio on Abbot Kinney, in Venice, California. I think the combination at the time.. was enough to push me away from the canvas to in front of a computer.. more days than not....

I took a break. Did what i thought was easier money and helped contribute to the success of some huge films, other peoples careers and continued to be the simple artist inside. I was painting every day ~not with oil and canvas and brush as i had been doing everyday of my life the previous 15 years.

So now, a new year begins. A new life. One of truer realities. New complex and yet simpler avenues to getting my work out. New things to learn, new people to connect with, new life and experiences, a new city, a new home, though I have had it ~I never lived there… a new way to make a living by I haven’t done solely~in 15 years…and most importantly~

A new engagement with my deepest love~ painting :)