Green Isaac II

Difficult Beach

Tall Buildings

Amphibian

Opportunity II

Opportunity

Bookshelf

Lowell: March 4 - end of March 1961, Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital New York, Mania [Manic-Depressive Psychosis]

The title is taken from an inventory of Lowell's medical treatment contained in the biography I'm currently reading, Setting the River on Fire, by Kay Redfield Jamison. This particular entry marked the 9th time Lowell had been hospitalized for mania. There would be 12 more in future years. The first painting didn't seem adequately to capture the manic trajectory, from calm, to mania, to the depression that emerges after intensive drug and shock therapy, to the return of relative calm, so I worked on it some more and it ended up turning into what you see in the second image. I'm not sure if I'm done with it, but I'm also not sure how much more I can think about manic-depressive psychosis.

Chaos, or, Bishop & Lowell

Crimson/Red

Drive all night

When I showed this one to a friend of mine, his one-word response was, "Wound," which seems like a better title than "Drive all night," which is probably the name of a pretty crap song from the 1980s. Anyway, Drive all night/Wound:

Love is tidal

Spoon

"Do you...wanna get understood...do you...run when it's just getting good...someone get popsicles...someone do something 'bout this heat...that's the way love comes..."

Cover Art

More Steve McQueen stuff

All my silence and my strained respect...all my insights from retrospect

More Prefab Sprout-inspired painting, this time by the perfect song Bonny, lyrics appended below. Words don't hold you, broken soldiers.

I spend the days with my vanity

I'm lost in heaven and I'm lost to earth
Didn't give you minutes, not even moments
All my life in a tower of foil
Shaded feelings, I don't believe you

When you were there before my eyes
No one planned it, took it for granted

I count the hours since you slipped away
I count the hours that I lie awake
I count the minutes and the seconds too
All I stole and I took from you

But Bonny, don't live at home
Bonny, don't live at home

Words don't hold you, broken soldiers

All my silence and my strained respect
Missed chances and the same regrets
Kiss the thief and you save the rest
All my insights from retrospect

But Bonny, don't live at home
Bonny, don't live at home

A few new ones

Late night fabric samples

Split Screen

Needs Work

More Bishop - More Questions of Travel

The Charles River - Robert Lowell (updated)

I wanted to obscure the words to make it look less like ugly graffiti, and also to reflect the blurring of Lowell's judgment and clarity during his manic episodes due to his lifelong bipolar disorder. Not sure if this works or if it now just looks like a big mess. I'm leaning toward the former position. It's closer to what I was trying to achieve, blending words and images but not privileging one over the other.

Geography III (for Elizabeth Bishop)

Desire as a sylph-figured creature who changes her mind...

I have adored (understatement) Prefab Sprout for about 35 years. This is inadequate, but it's a nod to their masterpiece, Steve McQueen. These paintings also have nothing actually to do with either Prefab Sprout or Steve McQueen; they are just free-floating objects. It's only that I was thinking of the album when I made them, and this is what came out. So it's both random and not random at the same time. I do what I want. Or what I'm told. But in this case, I do what I want. 

The Charles River - Robert Lowell

(16x20 acrylic and oil and pen for the words)

Works in Progress

This one may not be so much of a work in progress as I thought. I may just let it be as it is. But it doesn't really have a name. Deal with it.

The one below was posted earlier as "Daydreams of  a Lighter Heart." It might be closer to finished now.

Firesideways (update)

This is an update to an earlier post. It's basically two 12x16 paintings that mirror each other. A weird and so far unresolved work-in-progress. We'll see what happens next. Not happy with it get, but I have a sense of where it's heading.

Daydreams of a Lighter Heart (in progress)

(acrylic, 16x20)

Leftovers

I have run out of paints. This is all I have left to work with. It could be worse.

A Miracle for Breakfast - First Attempt

A poor early attempt to respond to Bishop with some of the exotic palette of Key West and Brazil, two of her longtime inspirational locales. Work in progress, as they all are, but you have to start somewhere. And yes, that is corrugated cardboard. (8x10, acrylic, mostly)

Setting The River On Fire - First attempt

First attempt to realize a vision of the Lowell biography. Truth be told, I was just using up random old tubes of paint, like cooking with leftovers. Once again unsure of the best orientation, so here are two, although the title would suggest it should be in landscape, obviously. (16x20, oil and acrylic)

Update - it just became this (I like the last one the best):

Stars are Stars

Echo and the Bunnymen Crocodiles alert:

(9x12, acrylic)

Stars are Stars (Echo and the Bunnymen)

The sky seems full
When you're in the cradle
The rain will fall
And wash your dreams
Stars are stars
And they shine so hard

Now you spit out the sky
Because it's empty and hollow
All your dreams
Are hanging out to dry
Stars are stars
And they shine so cold

I saw you climb
Shadows on the trees
We lost some time
After things that never matter

I caught that falling star
It cut my hands to pieces
Where did I put that box?
It had my name in it

I saw you climb
Shadows on the trees
We lost some time
After things that never matter

The cogs have clicked and
The clocks will have their say
In the making of a day
You came here late
Go home early
Who'll remember?
Now you've gone away
Gone away
Gone away

Five Fathoms

The only way out is down
The only way up is down
 

(Everything But The Girl)

(9x12, acrylic)

Songs to the Siren

I hope we all know what a siren is, apart from the annoying noise made by emergency vehicles. In any event, the song that inspired these paintings is infinitely superior to the paintings they inspired. Obviously. Lyrics posted below the images.

Song to the Siren (originally by Tim Buckley, covered by This Mortal Coil)

Long afloat on shipless oceans

I did all my best to smile

'Til your singing eyes and fingers

Drew me loving to your isle

And you sang

Sail to me

Sail to me

Let me enfold you

Here I am

Here I am

Waiting to hold you

Did I dream you dreamed about me?

Were you here when I was forced out

Now my foolish boat is leaning

Broken lovelorn on your rocks

For you sing, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow

Oh my heart, Oh my heart shies from the sorrow"

Well I'm as puzzled as the newborn child

I'm as riddled as the tide

Should I stand amid the breakers?

Or should I lie with death, my bride?

Hear me sing, "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you

Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you"