Small works are back….

Celebrating the 12 days of Christmas….. or maybe 15. I've got a lot on my plate, we'll see how far I get. But starting today, the first two small pieces are available at www.RichardCHarringtonSmallwork.com.

Each is framed, ready to hang, and USPS Priority Mail in the US is included in the price.

Cathedral, oil on panel, 7 x 7 inches.

$350.00 framed and shipped to you by Priority Mail in the CONUS.

Bright Sunny Day, oil on panel, 6 x 8 inches.

SOLD, framed and shipped to you Priority Mail in the CONUS.

In the dark.

I left the pups at home and skied tonight, in a blizzard- first time int two years. My skis are in tough shape, needing a good waxing. The snow was 10 - 12 inches of peanut butter powder, drifts over my knees, wind howling, and within a 1/2 mile I could no longer see the lights of South Lima. At one point I was a bit concerned I was lost, surrounded in a mauve/gray swirl, visibility of about 20 ft. Then I found the hedge row I was kind of expecting.

So much fun. So quiet. And oddly relaxing.

First storm of the season.

First Storm of the Season, 11 x 11 inches, oil on panel.

I didn't want to go out. I wasn't expecting this weather yet- I was living in the fantasy of having another month of fall. But today we woke up to 14 º. I put off the walk til noon, when it had risen to a balmy 18º. And the wind had kicked up.

It would have felt a lot warmer at 7 in the morning.

But my first rule of living with dogs is, A tired dog is a good dog.

Rule 2? A not tired dog is a serious pain in the ass.

So layered up in wool, down, and whatever else seemed like it might work, we headed out. Of course my two companions were wearing their summer outfits. Their beards didn't ice up, their faces didn't freeze, their toes weren't numb. And they were not the least bit excited when I'd had enough and turned for home.

And then, for me, the walk paid off. Well, in addition to the aforementioned tired dogs. The sun, trying to push through the storm, slipping in and out. I don't paint very directly much anymore. My work has evolved into a very indirect process of layer after layer, applied over days and weeks, often into months.

But today I got home and went right at it. It was fun, and made the 45 minutes of freezing my….. of being cold, seem even more worthwhile.

These two. 45 minutes was nothing. Another half hour of all-star wrestling finally did them in.

Pale Horse

Pale Horse, 16 x 20 inches, oil on glass.

I've been toying with animal images for years, trying to escape my pre-disposition for rendering the snot out of things. Then one day I was cleaning my pallet (I use a big sheet of glass), and saw the paint through the clean underside. Maybe there was a solution there.

I don't think it's something I'm going to repeat, working on the glass ground, as the fragility makes it too iffy, but it was a fun and satisfying experiment.

It will be my contribution to the Rochester Contemporary members show this month.

The painting doesn't actually have the reflection of my shoulder along the top, or the chair leg on the right. Turns out there are more problems with the glass than fragility.

dia de los muerta...

Things are showing up in the studio lately. Mainly me. Time to get back on the horse. More to come soon.

Studio artifact

Some color is starting to show up on top of all the white gesso. Just in time for spring.

Prep continues

Two 24 x 34, three 30 x 30, two 32 x 40, two 48 x 48, and two 48 x 60. Canvases leaning everywhere, gesso on everything I wear into the studio.

And painting in between. Some things should start coming together in the next week or so.

Prep work

With a big pile of stretcher bars, it was time to get busy stretching. After stretching, each canvas gets two coats of Golden GAC 100, a multi-purpose acrylic polymer. In this case, its purpose is to isolate the canvas from the destructive qualities of the paint, which can really degrade canvas or linen over time. Over two coats of the polymer, I brush on three coats of Golden Gesso. The gesso is also acrylic based, so it bonds well with the the GAC 100, but it is porous as apposed to the shielding quality of the earlier layers, so the paint soaks in and binds to it.  A safe, secure, archival ground to build a painting on.  I can usually juggle 3 or four big canvases at a time, moving them around the studio, propped and drying, waiting for another layer. Each is dated after the last coat, so I know that it's dried sufficiently over a couple weeks to provide a dry and stable surface.

Stocking up

I picked up a fairly substantial order of stretcher bars yesterday from Mike and his great team at Rochester Art Supply. I've got about 10 canvases ready now, and there are enough bars there for 36 more, from 24 x 34 to 66 x 96 inches.

I guess I better get busy.

Studio artifact...

It's been cold, brutally cold, but things are getting done!

Inertia

Inertia- as defined by Websters- "physics : a property of matter by which something that is not moving remains still and something that is moving goes at the same speed and in the same direction until another thing or force affects it."

I've always had it, or felt like I did. Certainly not first thing in the morning, but once I was up and running, I could always just keep going. When I was younger it wasn't unusual for me to work 12 or 14 hours a day. 16. I didn't need to. I wanted to. 

The last 14 months have been a lesson in the other side of it. An object at rest stays at rest. In December of 2012 I was diagnosed with cancer in my vocal chord. What? Me? C'mon, obviously a mistake. Never a smoker, moderate drinker, damn near vegetarian, lots of exercise…… c'mon!

Nope. Doctor Haben was right. Two surgeries later…. and what? It appears that the good doctor got it, auguring my throat with his trusty laser. Turns out my system does NOT like morphine. Or much of any drug. And my head…. well my head spent a lot of time thinking about life and where I was. I don't think it's possible to have cancer associated with yourself and not spend time contemplating your mortality. My momentum came to a halt.

When Darby told a friend of hers, the friend responded, I thought he was unstoppable.

I did too.

After a couple months of that it was enough- enough of the depression, the mortal questions. I knew where I was, where I was trying to go. But still, I couldn't shake off the inertia. I felt like I plodded through last year. 

Muddle-headed and stuck in first gear, I ground through the year. I read very little, one of my favorite pastimes and the driver of much of my thinking. About the end of November, Darby read an article about the side affects of Prilosec (I'd been taking it as a potential preventative for acid reflux for the cancer in my throat). It can interfere with the body's ability to process B12 and protein, which interferes with short term memory. Muddle. I talked to Dr Haben about it, and he suggested after getting past my next adventure we try dropping it.

So, that next adventure? A year later, almost to the day of the first cancer surgery, I went in to have my knee replaced. Something I've been putting off for a long time- I destroyed it in highschool. While on the blood thinners and pain killers for the knee surgery, I forgot to take my Prilosec. A couple weeks after the surgery I'd had enough of the side effects of the painkillers and dropped them. And a few days later, it felt like a fog lifted. 

I've been sidelined by the need for rehab of my knee, but it's coming along really well. I'm back in the studio for two sessions every day, held up as much by the brutally cold winter and poorly insulated studio as my swelling joint. But the inertia is changing, from a body at rest to a body in motion. I have a dozen or so pieces underway, and several big canvases waiting for paint. I'm part of a three person show that opens in a couple weeks at The Oxford Gallery here in Rochester.

The muddle is gone. I'm healthy. I'm rolling again. 2014 is looking pretty damn good.