This was a bad painting week. I started watching TV again, which cut into my painting time. Bad weeks I wonder about why I paint- what the plan is, why I should protect doing art from easier, more user friendly activities.

This weekend I visited my wife’s parents and thought a lot about what the Jess and Eric painting is about. Here are some thoughts:

• I think memories of places are rarely independent of the people that those memories include or are associated with. Also, it’s significant to me that I have a lot harder time remembering places without even a remembered context of relationship. I can picture a rock or a cup, but soon as I picture the inside of a home I start thinking about the people who live there. So, that’ why I’ve put Jess and Eric in every room. Even though the painting is constructed from pictures, it’s also about my memories of living with them.
• I think the internal relationship between people is a fascinating mystery. I think that when I talk to people, I often try to imagine what’s going on in them. Similarly, when I think about relationships between people, especially married people, the mystery of their relationship often makes me more interested in both people as individuals. The trouble is, there isn’t really a cathartic arrival of knowing about someone else’s person- it’s a force and a direction, but not really a destination. So, when I’ve been making the painting, I haven’t been interested in crystallizing some final point to the painting. (Caveat- I don’t know if that’s a cause or an effect. I never have final points to my paintings. Is that because I don’t see a final point to anything or because I can’t figure out how to make a really directed painting? Who knows.)
• I once read in a book (Which one, Nathan?)(Whoops, don’t know) that still lives were just piles of rich people’s stuff. It was cultural consolidation of that person’s identity and wealth. So, whenever I make a painting I think of it as a kind of consolidation for whoever the target audience is. I don’t want to affirm someone just being rich, but there are a lot of of things I would like to affirm.
• I generally am most interested in photos where people are just living. There’s strange power for me in seeing someone get something out of a fridge. If that’s a universal, I’d love to give people more of that.

So, I hope I have a better week this week. Feel free to let me know what you think about my all words blog post. Thanks.