Well, we are in the middle of a major blizzard, again, although this one so far is mostly wind and blowing snow. I just returned from an abbreviated walk with the dogs, and both were quite invigorated. Me, less so. The pictures here are of the last four works I have done. The two paintings of the tulips are a perfect example of painting something simply because you like the way it looks.....doomed to failure. I loved my tulips, but that doesn't mean I ought to paint them. Paintings are not the things they represent. In this case, I tried to put paint on a flat 8x10 canvas expecting to create tulips. It is the impulse of am amateur. They seek to "capture" what they see. Any work of art needs to remember that it is a version of a thing, not the thing itself. Only nature can make a tulip.
In this case, I was even more removed from the object of my desire because I photographed it first and painted from that. So I was painting a picture of a picture of tulips. I forgot that.
Then the boats were inspired by a thought of pleasing visitors to Eastport. It's fairly easy to do that, but not very interesting. I worked hard on making a good representation of water and pretty much succeeded. I look at it and think "Yeah, so what?."
The other is an experiment prompted by a conversation with my dear friend Elizabeth, who lives at the elbow of Cape Cod. She had taken a workshop on making prints using styrofoam. She is a far more adventurous artist than I, and is constantly experimenting. My effort is pretty rough to say the least, but I enjoyed trying it and will probably do it some more once I have the right materials. I didn't have a single thing I needed to do it, so I substituted; things I did have. I do that quite often, with pretty mediocre results. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and will try it again.
Last on the list of my recent activities is dumping my 47" TV on its face, breaking the screen. It can't be repaired, so I had to come up with a way to get another one. After checking various places on line I finally decided I would have to bite the bullet and call rent-a-center. I am a loyal customer of theirs, having bought a refrigerator and a dryer from them in the past. No credit check is required. They simply let customers "rent" things at huge interest rates, repossessing them when the renter inevitably fails to meet the obligation. Then they re-sell the same object to some other deadbeat, who follows suit. Since I can not get credit, I am grateful for their services. I am one of the few who are actually able to make the payments and end up owning the item. They are bringing my new TV tomorrow. Meanwhile I am watching my upstairs TV. I have owned that one for about 45 years and it still works well. However, in today's world a 25-inch screen is unacceptable, even though there seems to be nothing much to watch. I still sit in front of it every evening for about two hours, watching reruns of "Criminal Minds" and "Special Victims Unit." Having seen all the episodes many times, I am free to come and go without losing track of the plot.
