Sunday, July 26, 2015

Indiana show

In Western Civilization our elders are books.
-Gary Synder

I sent some paintings to Indiana for a show, and of course I forgot to take any photos of them.
good health to you.  fare thee well.

It's an all girls show.
except for one guy.


collage+ink  bfk rives 11x15


collage+ink  bfk rives 11x15

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Whistler

this is actually cooler than it looks here
sorry I am just not good with a camera
and of course the central image is stolen from Whistler


collage  rives bfk 11x15

this one is way cooler than this one the way it is
it just doesn't show the fabulous depth
dang once again
keep the camera out of his hands


collage  rives bfk 11x15

Monday, July 20, 2015

I know you don't I?

Anything that doesn't take years of your life and drives
 you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
-Cormac McCarthy


ink+collage   rives bfk 11x15


ink rives bfk 11x15

Friday, July 17, 2015

talent and artist

The artist uses the talent he has, wishing he had more talent.  
The talent used the artist it has, wishing it had more artist.  -Robert Brault


ink  bfk rives 11x15


ink bfk rives 11x15

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

plain jane

Yes we're the Beavers of the Brain,
Just as busy as you please
Though we're frequently reported
To behave like lit-tle bees  
-Thomas Pynchon


watercolor+dye  bfk rives 11x15


ink  bfk rives 11x15

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

little things

Enjoy the little things
for one day you may look back
and realize
they were the big things.  -Robert Brault


ink + dye  bfk rives 11x15


ink dye watercolor  bfk rives 11x15

Thursday, July 9, 2015

where has he been?

What has he been doing? where has he been?
he give up on art man? no, he's just been kinda busy.
Going to see his son play...





and working in the garden cleaning up the plants he put in several years ago
and weeding, trimming small trees...


When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it.  If it comes out of the ground easily it is a valuable plant.  -Karel Capek




Let no one think gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation.  It is an
insatiable occupation like anything else to which a man gives his heart. -Karel Capek


planting clematis, flowers, transplanting viburnums and hydrangeas ...


and digging digging digging...
making a path.
moving dozens of plants



It is utterly forbidden to be half hearted about gardening.  You have to love it whether 
you like it or not. -Karel Capek

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Frank Stella

Up until 35 I had a slightly skewed world view.   I honestly believed everybody in the world wanted to make abstract paintings, and people only became lawyers and doctors and brokers and things because they couldn't make abstract paintings.  -Frank Stella


Stella's window
acrylic and dye  bfk rives 11x15


my teeth
collage acrylic  bfk rives 11x15

Friday, July 3, 2015

many years ago

I met Phillip Taafe many years ago at a book fair in New York.  Allen Ginsberg was there as well as Hubert Huncke, Peter Orlovsky,and I believe even Gregory Corso. Hubert was laying on the floor, but the rest of them were gathered around the same table as me.

But at that moment, I was deep in conversation with Paola Igliori, a breathtakingly beautiful woman who had just published this new book by Mohammed Mrabet -who was himself breathtaking, a viruouso and writer of immense intuition, and of course, a friend to Paul Bowles. And it was Paola who suddenly introduced me to Phillip and everyone else...as I was introduced to Allen I realized he was standing right next to me,  that I was surrounded by this great group of literati.

I knew this was the telling moment of my life, the moment of true feeling as Peter Handke calls it.  I remember the observation of Phillip Taafe.  I felt I was being seen as completely as I ever would be...and I felt I was falling short.  Yet for some reason I felt comforted with Allen next to me, it seemed as if he were giving me support -he kept fresh air running through the room.

Yet I was ashamed.  I could tell I was a failure.  Thank god that my next stop that day would be to see my brother, the one person who had never seen me as a failure, but as someone who keeps trying...my father said once, that the important thing is to have one more iron in the fire than you can handle...


the ice cream iron
collage  bfk rives 11x15


shine on
collage  bfk rives 11x15

Phillip Taafe

It's very clear to me after having seen so much over all these years,when a painting is delivering something or not.  If you can see the journey that the artist has been on, that they've come back with a
certain evidence and you want to feel that and interact with it.  I believe that painting should be involved with conveying knowledge and emotion and beauty and all kinds of poetic, intellectual energies.  I expect that.  - Phillip Taafe


Visit
collage  bfk rives 11x15


inside the box
collage  bfk rives 11x15

Wednesday, July 1, 2015

simple collage

right?
simple. No?


collage bfk rives 11x15


collage bfk rives 11x15

more of these guys

I actually think I will connect these guys
like tape together
hmmm. maybe four of them


ink  bfk rives 11x15


ink  bfk rives 11x15