working from the ground plane

jim is here now and we are taking the long way around to goa...chasing the monsoon without a drop of rain as of yet. i am idly searching for kolams, which brings attention back to the ground plane. here are a couplea shots from padmanabhapuram. moments of apparent emptiness in the vibrant crush that is india. more images from madurai to kanyakumari are posted here.

i love hitting the road...

...with unfinished paintings on the boards. i carry them like dreams or morsels or distant relatives...banking on a trust that the identity of resemblance holds true over the years and miles. this is why i wish to paint places instead of people...places for people to meet and explore a shared inhabitance beyond the site-specific. one of these days i'll get back to the kolams...promise....

works in progress

a few snaps from my studio today.

it's not so simple...

...as flying half-way around the world, opening the paintbox and making some art. which is not to say that i haven't been working. i spend a few hours each day in the studio but the mad torrent of creative energy must be coalescing somewhere out over the andaman sea while the rest of us are sweating it out in town. i would describe the three paintings currently underway as pre-monsoon. clouds gather and disperse. a few drops fall with the rumble of distant thunder and a weak flash. but the real meat of the storm, the chewy goodness of hard rain on dirt roads and the mad twisting wind has yet to make landfall. according to the indian meterological department, this is simply the nature of onset. the monsoon will come. it always does. it's happening right now, out over the sea beyond our reach. and it will make landfall. it's just a matter of pressure, temperature, wind, time, and paint.