Flute Player

12"x9" oil on canvas panel. This is George. George played his flute while posing. He also does music therapy classes for rehabilitating individuals at a local hospital. I think all this makes George pretty gosh darn cool. • Music can be an aid when painting or it can be an obstacle that sticks in your brain like a dirty rock. I do not know how to describe George's flute playing other than it seemed to flow throw me, neither an implement or amphetamine—it just was. Of course, this could also be evidence of my drastic loss of the little gray cells (a.k.a. nothing in the noggin for the music to stick to). • You will notice that this painting is not for sale. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, due to the topography of this piece, this is not the best picture possible. To counter the texture, I was forced to shoot it relatively straight on, in a cave somewhere deep in a jungle, thus taking away one of my primary photo tricks of shooting my work at an angle. The other reason is that I am not done with this painting. I don't mean the painting of it. My style and inclination of working does not allow for such reworking and, quite frankly, when I finish a painting, I'm done—exhausted—already moving on. What I mean to say is that I am not done with it mentally. There is a lot going on here and I am not reconciled to it all. So, I will put it away and revisit it later. Where to put it safely is the challenge; there is knife applied spackle on there that I have high hopes of drying by the turn of the next century.
Posted March 9, 2011
nfs