gertrude stein

I love reading Mohammed Mrabet, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, and Blaise Cendrars...I simply do not think I've ever come across such brilliant writers again, writers blessed with such honesty, such self-revelations, such interesting mind-meanderings, such an abundance of love, with an understanding of art and its place in the world -a world filled with magical words, fantastic words, words dropped in the most unusual places, and conveying such a sense of wonderment...

I posed for him all winter, eighty times and in the end he painted out the head, he told me he could not look at me anymore and then he left once more for Spain.  It was the first time since the blue period and immediately upon returning he painted the head without having seen me again, and he gave me the picture and I was and still am satisfied with my portrait, for me, it is I and it is the only reproduction of me which is always I, for me.  -G Stein

lacuna

we new still swimming in the warm pool of nothingness

the absence still exists

no metadata transfers from lightroom

to El Capitan

ink bfs rives 11x15 

it is all just a simple jpeg

we will get the orison soon

we must

george Orw -$5 off

I'm still struggling with it

I upgraded to lightroom 6 

I upgraded to OSx Yosemite

Ah 

I still can't get the developed images to transfer

collage rives bfk 11x15

sign off

well I'm havin a very tough time getting lightroom and my computer to

talk with one another

I know one of them at least is upset with the other

all disguised as some techical thingy gigy

unless of course

they are both pissed off at me

so I am giving you the equivalent of

the station sign off

due to technical difficulties

photos of the yard

all wer're gettin raht now

this be it raht now

all were gettin 

the computer wone transfer nuttin else

an I cannt figur it out yut 

rives bfk 11x15  collage

preamble

so we amble through the pre

searching for a voice

at first it just gets more and more

tangled and dark

until

 we finally find a small light

 we find one small voice

eventually

ad infinatum

it just goes on and on. ad infinitum.

there is a bunch of writing too.

too boring to photograph.

I'll try to try to take selected pictures tomorrow

just to provide a better sense of the thing.

inside and outside

these are a few pictures of the book Guthrie made and I filled.

this next one is some page in the book

and just another page at the beginning...

and this is the cover that guthrie put on it

and here she comes...it is now one massive book

and this is the back of it

the title page...

hey I'll put up some more pages next time...I can see it is hopeless.  

I'm just trying to give you a sense of it.

the summit

Oh it is definitely weird that way any painting gets made...there is never an image

 in one's mind

and then you produce it, replicate it..

Even if it is crummy, ugly or just plain stupid,

you must first

make it ugly.

collage bfk rives 11x15

collage bfk rives 11x15

get out of jail

get out of jail and be free...then one can and must face oneself, eventually.  

the jail can be anything -any addiction

any dishonesty

any ruse fabrication lies 

to oneself to others

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage  bfk rives 11x15

time -ex

One strange thing that happens

when you are older

is that you feel time

passing by 

saying goodbye to you

-that was your life

collage 11x15 rives bfk

collage 11x15 rives bfk

drawings

the moon and me

I'm finally back.  Man I worked on that darn book for a long time.  -a long time. a new focus.

a new scale. a new process.  It was hard. writing is always hard.  and working on that strange new scale was hard.  coming up with 300 or so drawings in a month of this was hard.

and thinking is hard.  I'm glad I'm done, or almost done.  one more story.  one more quote.

then I will be at peace with just the moon and me.

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage bfk rives 11x15

chicago

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage  bfk rives

the receptacle

the artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place:  from the sky,

from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape,

from a spider's web.  -picasso

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage bfk rives 11x15

two sketches

Man.  I've been working.  But not on these.  I'm sorry. 

charcoal & collage

11x14 sketch paper

charcoal & pencil

11x14 sketch paper

really what are you doin?

I know.  I've been very irregular with my postings.  I'm sorry.  And these are again just a couple of my drawings that I get out of that sketch book.  But you see, my eldest son Guthrie made an incredible book with 334 pages, a fantastic cover, and Japanese binding -and then he gave it to me...!

So I am working on it frantically, trying to get started on it, to get a move on it, to finish it, to work on it like I work on everything else -get it all done at once, at the exclusion of anything else.

So I am sorry.  

I am moving along. 

 I will post some pictures of it down the line.  

When it's finished.

charcoal  Blick sketch pad 11x14

charcoal & pencil

Blick sketch pad  11x14

yuck...what are these...?

well today is complaining day.

for me.  an I get to explain

what is goin on.

well. these are the backs of some of my paintings.   After I sign them I turn them over and put the date, the materials I used or at least the paints, my signature, the town where they were made and the kind and size of the paper I used.

But this summer it got kind of crazy around here and I couldn't do them all as I usually do, and they ended up sitting around in a big pile while I tried to get things together.  Some didn't have anything written on the backs of them and some had no signature even on the front.

What a mess.  And just now I'm finally getting them together and fixing them up.

Hallelujah

Imagination again

By the power of imagination all men, certainly imaginative men, 

are forever casting forth enchantments, 

and all men, especially unimaginative men, 

are continually passing under their power.

please do not misunderstand.

I do not class myself as Imaginative

but as one thoroughly

under their influence.

charcoal & pencil

Canon drawing paper

11x14

Charcoal

Canon drawing paper

11x14