Sunday, February 9, 2014

I'm back I think

Well in a sense I'm back.  I went to the we used to be geniuses bar and nobody knew nothin.  I've never had an apple experience like that before.  But thank god, I pushed and pulled on enough buttons I was finally able to get some pictures to load.


I am just trying to find a way to make pictures. -Jasper Johns  And when I get messed up on this blog it gets even worse.  I look at these old pictures (weeks) and now I think what was he trying to do? What ARE these about?  Of course I love that smoke.  It's not so easy to get either.  You've gotta have a good thick beeswax candle with a good thick wick.


And they've gotta burn just long enough to build up a flame and close to the surface.  These green ones, well they are a different story, you gotta use ink, nail polish, oil stick, oil, and watercolor.


Then, once you've picked the materials they just happen.  Except at the end when you walk around a big long table picking through scraps of paper  looking for one that goes right there.


And sometimes I imagine a Japanese mailbox in some small northern city, some place where Paul Jacoulet used to live.  In the late 40s my grandmother ventured up there by train to go see him and while there carefully picked the least expensive picture to buy.


Of course it would be easy to beat her up for that, for of course the room must of been stuffed with beautiful pieces.  But that wasn't my grandmother's speciality.  She could only pick up on the spirit of a place and try to take back something that would remind her of that day.





3 comments:

  1. love these, doug. especially the soot/smoke-- it's so delicate and ghostly and just under the borderline of definition, it feels like it's forcing my eyes to unfocus. really cool!!

    it looks almost like ghosts are trying to climb out of the paper but they can only just barely get a grip on it before they vanish again...

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  2. and inverted X-ray images. Darn that makes me happy just to see those words together. You totally get this stuff. I'm amazed. and jealous.

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