John Grillo

The Boston Globe had the obituary of my former painting teacher, John Grillo, who died at age 97 on the Cape.  I met John when I went to Amherst for the master's program in art teaching at UMass.  He taught me so much, basically through osmosis.  He was always around and he was always encouraging.  (He is not unlike my current mandolin teacher, Ned, who moves ahead without rapping ones fingers with a ruler.)  When I survey the work I did while painting with John Grillo and some of the things that came afterwards, I can see that they are my strongest work--and I am gleefully glorifying colors we both shared.  John Grillo gave me hope, something I rarely found with other teachers, especially of the art kind (exception is Paul Berabe, another UMass guy who unwound my detestation of ceramics after two semesters at UNH with Al Potter (yes, that was his name)).

I have never stopped thinking about John Grillo and will continue to carry him in my art heart.

shawn finnegan

I was checking out books at the Newmarket Public Library where I work occasionally and this book came across the desk entitled:  I Ain't Gonna Paint No More.  It's a kids book and I have put a hold on it because the title pretty much says it all.

Visits to galleries, museums, and the like are not high on my priority list right now (ART STINKS!) except for the trip my sister Kitty and I took up to Waterville, Maine, to the Colby Gallery to see B. Langlois wooden animal sculptures which are wonderful, for all the right reasons.  I loved it.  It was worth the two plus hour drive up to our former home to see it (the exhibit and our old house on Roosevelt Avenue).

I am hoping to audit a course on environmental and wildlife concerns this spring at UNH and maybe that will spur something that could be done artistically.

I also got kind of fascinating with dying irises so I'll throw in a few of those, too.

Okay, Okay, I am also knitting another sweater, free range with left-over colors, all done in straight knit stockinette.

Art stinks . . .  teehee

Just to clarify, I did not post the preceding at 6:57 a.m.  It is now almost 10 a.m. on Tuesday.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, technology is just so great.  s

Today is the equinox and we are now in fall.  I suppose one could say that I am also in the autumn of my life.  This is the best time of the year. 

That said, right now my feelings about art are:  art sucks and is boring and who cares.  I feel overloaded with everyone expressing THEIR cute and/or deep ideas.  Art is a narcissistic preoccupation.

Boring.  Boring.  Boring.

Sweater, Australian Aborigine Style

Here is the sweater, sans sleeves, that I have been working on recently.  I stole the idea from a book and from a sweater I did a long time ago (and have since unraveled) so I guess I can safely say it is mine.  And, yes, things are not "even," intentionally so.

Work in Progress

This is my latest piece connecting three dimensionality in real time and place and the concept of letter writing.  I am slowly filling each box with a letter addressed to "dearest M" which is the actual title of the piece.  I continue to mull what it is I am trying to say and how to say it and am wondering if I should make the letters accessible to the viewer (personal?  all that pulling of box covers off to retrieve letters?  etc.).

I recently went to the gallery at Phillips Exeter to see an exhibit where words were actually applied to various art forms:  clay; paper; woven cassette tape; thread; cut up books in new assemblages.  I continue to think about Cy Twombley and his painting/pencil writing.  In a discussion with my niece who is also a painter, we commiserated about the hassles to maintaining an oil painting set up in one's room.  One of my issues is the amount of turpenoid  that I go through in order to maintain clean colors.  I should have buckets of the stuff.  This too will make itself known.  I do love the act of painting and splotching and spreading color.  How to utilize these without doing another (traditional) self portrait.

All my work continues to be personal and self-portrait like.

Next post will show my finished Australian sweater where I stole a basic idea from a book and made it into my own through color and design changes.

I spent more time trying to put this on line than I did in painting it.

I stole this idea from someone (thanks to my friend Maureen in Washington State who sent the little video of new things made from old things) but the paint job is mine.