Autumn 2014 | Works on Paper + One on Canvas

Been thinking a lot lately of our trip, a few years ago, to le pays Dogon in Central Mali--the names and colors of West Africa, the dust and the dirt. I love things to be dirty.

Amma, 48" x 34", acrylic and paste on paper

Séno-Gondo, 35" x 24", acrylic and paste on paper

Sigli-Tolo, 50" x 39", acrylic and paste on paper

SnoMan-NoMan, 24" x 19", acrylic and paste on paper

Djenné, 62" x 42", acrylic and paste on canvas

G. Lekeu

Guillaume Lekeu is not a particularly well-known composer but I listen to his music often, especially while working. The sound of his work effects the  choices I make while painting. Lekeu had a short life; he died one day after his twenty-fourth birthday from ingesting contaminated sorbet. This book is meant to be an homage. While hand-painted, or perhaps more correctly hand-stenciled, it was done as a multiple; there are ten copies. The page size is approximately 11" x 7.25" and the paper is Stonehedge. 32 pages. The binding is by John Demeritt.

Editions of Hand-painted Books

For some time I've been working on three hand-painted books––as editions: I've been making ten copies of each book, stenciled and painted as similarly as possible. For an artist whose work often seems to revolve around making the best of mistakes, that can be confounding: can one make an honest mistake ten times in a row?

Today I took the last of the folios to John Demerritt, the non-mistake-driven bookbinder in the East Bay who turns my folios into well-sewn volumes. While I'm eager to see them bound and complete, the process of repeatedly committing the same action, page after page, has been a reward in itself; it has proven to be, if not exactly therapeutic, at least compelling, and at the best of times almost spiritual, similar to repeating a mantra while meditating.

I think it might feel strange, returning to doing things just once.

(As usual, click on the image to see it in higher res.)