This work includes a piece of music that uses the painting's composition as its score (See my SoundCloud Page for the song and specifics on its creation). I finished both of these right before heading out of town for the holidays. I am very excited about this piece but felt like I needed a response that was more obviously optimistic. In a 13 hour studio marathon on Wednesday, I painted I Know Things Will Be Better (24" x 24" acrylic on panel) using the same colors though heavily tinted with unbleached titanium white. The results have an Easter basket feel but I don't mind. And yes, my daughter was accepted to Cornell!
This was the first piece I worked on after the recent election (see previous blog post Art After 11.8.16). The name is taken from a line in Nick Cave's song, The Rings of Saturn. It began much darker than I anticipated but even though it was executed as Trump announced one horrible choice after another to fill cabinet positions, my daughter's anxiety over waiting for news regarding her application to her first choice of colleges was front and center in our house. The line from the song, "This is the moment/this is exactly what she was born to be/this is what she is/this is what she does," kept playing over and over again in my head. I was so optimistic about her future whether the top choice worked out or not.
This work includes a piece of music that uses the painting's composition as its score (See my SoundCloud Page for the song and specifics on its creation). I finished both of these right before heading out of town for the holidays. I am very excited about this piece but felt like I needed a response that was more obviously optimistic. In a 13 hour studio marathon on Wednesday, I painted I Know Things Will Be Better (24" x 24" acrylic on panel) using the same colors though heavily tinted with unbleached titanium white. The results have an Easter basket feel but I don't mind. And yes, my daughter was accepted to Cornell!
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Sometimes I wonder if I missed my calling to become a music writer. I'm not that great at making music but I sure do love listening and thinking about music. Music is a much bigger influence on my painting than other visual art. I've thought a bit this year about how I assess work. How I come to understand art by relating it to work that has come before. This is where the whole ratings thing comes in but I generally find works that are difficult to categorize and make easy associations are the ones I respond to most. These are the albums I rate 11.
What is the best? I usually try to get my list out before the experts but his year I could not chose a top album. I kept going back and forth on what I mean when I say the best. Am I talking about purely qualitatively or simply what I enjoy the most. Should my "best of" or favorite album of the year be the one I listen to the most. If that is the case, it would have to be Thao and the Get Down Stay Down's A Man Alive or maybe Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial. On the other hand, should I consider what I believe I will still be wowed by in 5, 10, 20 years. On a qualitative, how will it stand the test of time level, the award goes to Nick Cave's The Skeleton Tree. The year my favorite musicians made great albums I've been a fan of Nick Cave since the 1980s Birthday Party days. I find him very compelling and his bands are amazing whether its the rauchous power of Junkyard, the off-kilter country-blues of First Born is Dead or any more straighthead rock of Let Love In. My big issue with Nick Cave is the glorified, gratuitous violence and since this is such a big part of his ouvre, you wouldn't think I could actually like his work. The Skeleton Tree is quite simply the best thing he has ever done. There are no "six inch gold blade" murder ballads that may make for a good story but have nothing to do with the world I live in. The songs are raw and deal with real everyday feeling in a sort of Nick Cave kind of way. I spent most of the Friday and Saturday after David Bowie's Blackstar came out listening to and raving about the album only to wake up on Sunday to the news of his passing. Suddenly, the intense video for the title cut made sense. I still play this one a lot. Brain Eno's The Ship was an unexpected "vocal" album. The title cut is wonderful and the cover of Velvet's classic, I'm Set Free is an odd but ultimately satisfying version. Great Listens I can't stop listening to A Man Alive from Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. Produced by Merle Grabus, this is full of great writing and the same varied pallette Nicki Nack and like the Tune Yards album, the pieces all fall together beautifully. Car Seat Headrest turns in the best straight up rock album. I generally like the more meadering songs which seem to point to a Steven Malkmus influence. Bon Iver's bizzare new album is also very compelling. Filled with three things I typically hate (Autotune, glitchy electronics and falsetto), I still love this album. I think there is something about Justin Vernon that fits my aesthetics perfectly. I am fascinated with two remix albums from very unlikely sources- Michael Gordon's piece for 2 x 4s, Timber and Max Richter's 8 hour musical ambien, Sleep. The original works are great but these remixes have are worth the effort. New To Me Emma Ruth Rundle! Wow I was knocked out by her album Marked for Death. It is dark but there is some glimmers of hope in their. She is an interesting guitarist and luckily I found she has an instrumental album for those times I don't want the weight of lyrics. Hard to Classify Albums Do we call Henry Threadgill's Old Locks and Irregular Vebs jazz? Is Nels Cline's Lovers straight ahead jazz? Both these guys have lived on the margins but flirted with mainstream enough to get some attention. Sure, Nels Cline is in Wilco now. I'm in love with the first song of Nico Muhly/Teitur's Confessions. Its a song about trying to describe someone and goes off on tangents that these types of mundane discussions often do. Tim Hecker's Love Streams adds vocals into his rich sonic mix. As a working electronic musician, I will say Hecker is the bomb. I don't know how he can be so consistantly great. The debut but the French group Bonjour is deceptively breezy but there is some great minimalism going on. Are These Classical? The Kronos Quartet's repackaging of their Terry Riley recordings Sunrise of the Planetary Dream Collector is worth mentioning because it includes a number of excellent new recording too David Lang's The National Anthems is beautiful take on the idea of national anthems which seems especially poignant these days Maya Bieser's TranceClassical merges "traditional' classical with works by contemporary composers and some deep delta blues. And Radiohead A Moon Shape Pool suffers from sounding like the Radiohead album people think they want. Like Hail to the Thief, it pulls together the more straightofrward aspects of what they had been doing to make a solid album most bands would kill to be able to make. Unfortunately, Radiohead is at their best when they surprise us (Kid A, In Rainbows). That said, this is still really, really good and this version of True Love Waits is...well, I don't even have the right words. Good Albums That Suffer From Just Not Being as Good as Their Others A lot of bands released good solid albums this year that I just don't find myself listening to because, if i am going to listen to them, I'm going to put on one of their older albums. These include: Patch the Sky (Bob Mould), Will (Julianna Barwick), Human Performance (Parquet Court), The Wilderness (Explosions in the Sky), Interventions (Horse Lords), The Glowing Man (Swans), Kamikaze (So So Glos), Pretty Years (Cymbals Eat Guitars) and False Readings On (Eluvium). In the wake of the recent election, it is clear that many artists are struggling with how to proceed with their work. From my teens through my time in art school, I tended to paint topical paintings and my bands also wore our politics on our sleeves. At some point I came to realize that I was simply preaching to the choir. Everyone involved in the art and music scene in Norfolk was of the same mind-set. I wasn't really growing so I decided to move away from work that was so obvious. But what happens when the unthinkable happens. How do we work within the current environment. Though my first post election instinct is to start making anti-Trump work, railing against all that he stands for and the ugly underbelly of this nation that his assent has surfaced. I keep thinking that whatever I do with my work won't have any effect. I appreciate Beyonce, Green Day and others who have the big stage and are in a position to influence, especially young folks. Their messages may be simple but they are starting conversations. I grew up on the Clash and the Minutemen, whose political songs tended to bring complex issues from the margins into the light. I'm not sure if the folks I mentioned above are operating on this level politically, but I believe I was receptive to the Clash and the Minutemen because of earlier, more simple protests by better known artists from the 60s on. So, even given the current state of affairs, I have decided to stay the course with my work. But even when I am consciously making content-free work, things do creep in. The first work I started and completed since the election was a short piece of music from my "In C" project. This project, I am using sections of Terry Riley's 53 part piece called In C. The piece in composed in the key of C, hence the title but I randomly chose through sections which happened to slip into E Minor. The piece features one main figure and two shorter figures. They begin at the same point but the shorter figures fall behind. The piece plays until the shorter figures come back in sync with the longer one. certainly wasn't thinking about the push/pull of conservative/progressive when I randomly selected these short figures but it does appear to be a metaphor of sorts. I have called the piece A Simple Phase because the idea was based loosely on Reich, or more accurately, Eno's interpretation of Reich's phase technique in pieces like Thursday Afternoon. I am considering subtitling the piece An Elegy For America. I purposely write in major keys and didn't even think about the fact that this was in a minor key until playing back the final mix. (You can hear the piece here: https://soundcloud.com/stephen-boocks/a-simple-phase-in-c5) I started a new group of paintings which I had decided to make as an homage to Brice Marden. I was going to use a red-puple-blue palette for the grid and a yellow for the dots. But as I mixed the paints, they stayed pretty dark. Since I often allow things to just happen, I went with these colors. On one hand they are fairly bright and intense but together, in the grid pattern, they are certainly darker than anything I've done in a long time. I think it is very important to stay true to yourself and follow whatever course feels right. Sometimes I just think I should do more.
Isn't it great that art exhibitions are not generally rated on some number or star system- whether 1 to 5, 1 to 10 or the classic 100 point scale we all remember from school. Imagine if your show only scored "three paintbrushes" in Artforum. There's a great line from Lou Reed on Take No Prisoners that goes something like, "imagine working for a year on an album and some asshole from the Village Voice gives you a B+."
Ratings play a big part in my day job working in the wine world. Everyone wants that 90 point wine that only costs $10. I have this "terrible" job that requires me taste well over a thousand wines a year and yes, I give each one a score. Every wine writer will tell you that a score is just a guide and you need to read the actual review to get a better feeling about whether or not the wine is a good choice for you. Since my scores are not published and are only used either as part of a group analysis to determine what wines we should carry or for my own reference, I tend to be somewhat generous on nice pleasant wines, giving 90 points to wines that I know most writes would score 86-88 points. The longer I've been at the wine game, I have also stopped giving an absolute score. I prefer to say a wine is 88-90 points or 91-92. The publications want a more absolute view of quality so a delicious wine will lose points because its not very complex or the finish isn't long enough. I tend to score wines that I want to buy and drink a little higher simply because I like them. I am much more stingy in scoring wines over 90 points. These are more expensive wines so if I continue to consider if I would want to buy and drink the wine, its going to need to deliver exponentially more to score higher. The big question I get when I'm out in our stores helping customers is what is the difference between an 89 point wine and a 90 point wine. The answer is maybe a lot or maybe very little. Its one opinion from one sip on a random day. I've been a music junkie since my early teens and have always rated albums for myself. Rolling Stone and other publications typically use a 5 star system but I find that scale a little limiting so I use my own 11 point system that allows half point increments. Pitchfork has a 10 point system but allows for tenth of a point increments such as 8.3. Isn't that really an 83 out of 100. My 11 point system is really a 10 point systems where you substitute an 11 for a 10. As with Nigel's amp in Spinal Tap, for me, these albums have that extra kick. There are only a handful of albums that I would give an 11: Kind of Blue (Miles Davis), Highway 61 Revisited (Dylan), In C (Terry Riley), Another Green World (Brian Eno), 3rd (Peter Gabriel), Remain in Light (Talking Heads), Kid A (Radiohead), Music for Airports (the Bang on a Can version of the Brian Eno piece). These albums are all perfect for me. Not a bad song or even part of a song. I can't imagine anything to make them better. There are hundreds of awesome albums that I would only give 9.5 because there is something that bugs me just a little. Something that I would change if I could. This is why I use that half point increment. I've been deep diving into Brian Eno lately and started thinking if there is a better way to rate albums. I find initial impressions often change over time. Perhaps frequency of listening (rotations) is a better way to rate. I listen to Thursday Afternoon way more than I do Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, but is it better? There are tons of great albums like Neil Young's Tonight's the Night or Soft Machine's 3rd that I may not listen to very often at all for particular reasons. I'm a bit of a cataloger and since these ratings are for myself, I guess it only matters if I know what the ratings mean. I entered 2016 with absolutely no shows on my calendar. Surprisingly, I found this situation comforting and so far, this has been a great year for my work. I was fortunate enough to have 3 solo shows in past couple of years as well as curate a show of over 100 works by 11 artists, Last year I was so busy, I really didn’t have the time to step back and assess what I was making. This year I have been taking the time to explore certain themes in depth and it is really paying off. Even though I am a notoriously slow painter, I have completed nearly 30 painting through July with many more on the way. There are three interrelated series that I have been working on. The Systems series has been the most productive. These are grid-based paintings, that are composed by setting rules for how the grid is painted then following them randomly. I’ve generally worked on 4 pieces at a time in this series with the same colors. I’ve finished a few paintings in the Tangles series that uses ribbon-like linear elements and the third series, Tangled Systems overlays the Tangles on a grid-based Systems ground. I have been working on a fourth series of 14 paintings based on the songs from Brian Eno’s Another Green World (see below). My paintings are based largely on musical concepts and I have also been working on creating music, including 31 short (~17 second) pieces to accompany my paintings. I’ve challenged myself to take 4 of these pieces and turn them into complete “songs” this month. To say that I am super-excited about my work right now feels like an understatement.
I’ve decided to start my blog again to help with this exploration. Though I don’t think many people blog anymore, I find that writing things down helps me organize my thoughts and work through ideas better. This just can’t be done with social media posts. I’ve never been one to keep a journal but I guess that is actually what this blog could be concidered. So the blog is really for myself but I hope others may find it interesting enough to read and chime in occasionally. Along with the blog, I am going to try to keep up with an Artists Facebook page that will include links to the blog and other art /music specific posts. 2015 is shaping up to be a great year for new music. Here’s a quick round up of my favorites and a few near misses. Since we are so used to ratings, I tend to rate everything (I have to rate wine for my job). For music, I use a 10pt scale and I only consider a handful of albums to be perfect 10s.
Courtney Barnett- Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit (9.0)- This is a big leap forward from her, the songs are so well crafted and the band is awesome, which was the big surprise for me seeing her show at the Black Cat last year. Seems like everyone is jumping on her bandwagon and I expect to see this on most best of lists for the year. I’m looking forward to her show at 9:30 club in June. Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp (9.0) – As a huge fan of her first two albums, I was unsure about this upon my first listen. The opener, Breathless, sounded so different from her previous work. The next couple of songs sounded more like her sister’s band Swearin’ then there is some piano- then about halfway, the song Air brought me back to more familiar territory albeit, more confident- more complex. It didn’t take too many more spins to fall in love with this album Mountain Goats- Beat the Champ (8.5) – I feel sorry for anyone who dismisses this because the songs are about small time pro wrestling. Darnielle and I are about the same age and I can generally relate. I used to have to fight for time to watch Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling as a kid because it conflicted with my dad’s favorite show, Hee Haw. As usual, Darnielle takes a subject and wrings so much out of it. What makes this album for me is the band. What a band, oh, and Darnielle actually singing. The Decemberists- What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (8.5) – This is probably the big surprise for me this year. I like some of their stuff but generally find the concepts of their albums to be annoying. There is something about the “old fashioned” wording of the lyrics that is off putting to me. Then comes this- a pretty straightforward collection of really good songs. The Lake Song is my song of the year so far. Godspeed You! Black Emperor- Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (8.0) – Nothing really new here, in fact it is a suite they have been playing live for more than a decade. It’s really good though and it does not include any “found” voice parts, which sometimes gets in the way for me. Sufjan Stevens – Carrie and Lowell (7.5) – I came pretty late to the Sufjan Stevens party so my introduction was the wonderfully bizarre, over the top electronics of Age of Adz. I later caught up on his more acoustic work. This is a really good album about his relationship with his mother but it hasn’t really grabbed me. In general, reviews are focusing in on how this will tear at your emotions. I haven’t felt that yet. I like it and I will keep listening. Modest Mouse – Strangers to Ourselves (7.0) Years in the making and somehow the song, Pistol (A. Cunanan, Miami, FL. 1996) made it to the final album. One reviewer said it was the single worst thing Brock has done and, well, its not great. But there is some really good, classic Modest Mouse kind of stuff that you’d expect and some really nice unexpected stuff like the lovely opener. It feels slick and shiny at places where a little dirt might have been better. Its still a pleasure to listen to in the studio. Death Cab for Cutie – Kitsugi (6.5)- Boy loses girl, the "New Girl" no less. Anyway, this is a pretty polished album and like the Modest Mouse, it suffers a bit. I’m a sucker for Ben Gibbard’s voice and phrasing so I’ll keep listening- maybe it will grow on me. I’ve listened mostly in the car which is not the best environment- needs some studio airtime. There’s plenty of new music I haven’t listened to yet. I’ve heard some of the Kendrick Lamar and find it pretty compelling. As far as anticipated releases, I can’t wait for the So Percussion recording of Bryce Dessner’s Music for Strings and Wood. I saw them perform this at Atlas a couple of weeks ago and it is awesome. Look for it in May. ![]() There was a point where it seemed like Brian Eno could do no wrong. From 1974 through 1985, he released a string of exceptional song-based albums in the 70’s, collaborated with David Bowie on his “Berlin Trilogy”, produced Talking Heads best records and essentially invented “Ambient Music” though there are plenty of precursors in the Minimalist/New Music world including a number of composers he recorded for his own Obscure Records. His 1990 collaboration with John Cale was a welcome return to song-based music after five years without a new record but the album was uneven. It included a few true gems like Lay My Love and Spinning Away but also weaker material like Been There Done That. The rest was somewhere in between. Though I played it a lot when it came out, I have rarely listened to it in the last 20 years. His few records from the 90s were generally big departures from what he had done before. Eno was never one to repeat himself even though he recycled material all the time. So now these four albums have been reissued with a ton of bonus material. Is it time to reassess this much-maligned period for Eno? Here’s are my thoughts: Nerve Net (9.5/10) – I still love the original album and having the entire scrapped My Squelchy Life together is a huge bonus. I think a lot of people will like My Squelchy Life more than Nerve Net and it makes me wonder what would have happened if it had been released. The bonus album begins with two “pop songs,” I Fall Up (which has been around) and The Harness. Then comes the weird middle stuff with Juju Space Jazz and My Squelchy Life in slightly different mixed and the interesting Tutti Forgetti. The song Under resurfaces in 2005 on Another Day on Earth. Great original album and great bonus album. Shutov Assembly (9/10) – I have always liked this oddball album but its atonality was hard for many to get into. The bonus tracks really help understand the decade between Thursday Afternoon and The Drop. Of the bonus tracks, Only the short Prague sounds as though it could have been on the original release. The first two bonus tracks sound like updated Low era Eno with Eastern Cities reworking Warzawa. Then Big Slow Arabs, Storm and Rendition. The last bonus track is an extended version of Alhondiga. I like the bonus material a lot but I tend to be a purist and like to hear the album as intended. My guess is I will listen to the bonus material separate from the album. Neroli (6.5/10) Of all the ambient records, Neroli is the one that always fades into the background for me. I do play this occasionally as true background music. The hour-long bonus track New Space Music (what an awful title) fits into the sound world of Discreet Music though richer in tone due to more modern equipment. It is also rather forgettable so it is a good addition. I can see playing this when I want some sounds that I won’t really pay attention to. The Drop (7/10) My original take on this album was that Eno was just noodling around on a Casio. He has said that this is unwelcome jazz because everyone he played it for didn’t like it. I’d give the original album a 6 but there is some nice bonus material, especially the Targa and the shorter Targa Summer. Well my opinions of these albums hasn’t changed much in 20 years and judging by Pitchfork’s negative reviews, perhaps no one else’s will either. ![]() I was reading an article about African-American abstractionists that mentioned the work of Howardena Pindell. I thought about a time, around 1992, that I gave her a ride in my 1982 Chevette. she gave a lecture at Old Dominion University As part of a show at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA. I can’t remember if she did any studio visits. Since I vividly remember Robert Colescott’s visit around the same time, I do not think she came by our studios. I do remember she and the Chrysler’s curator of contemporary art, Trinket Clark, were late getting back to the museum. Perhaps that is why they didn’t flinch at the state of my “art ride.” I don’t even remember if someone suggested I drive them or if I volunteered. Unfortunately, I can’t find any mention of the show online but if I remember correctly, Faith Ringgold was also included. Perhaps my memory is a little fuzzy and it was another artist in the car but I believe it was her and I would have remembered if it was Ringgold since she had rejected my work from a juried show a year or two before and that still stung a bit. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet a number of great artists and musicians. I should write about hanging out with The Minutemen in a house with no running water or not going up speak with Roy Lichtenstein at a party on a house boat in New York. There are more Thursdays coming. ![]() Since I had to hang around the house all day on Friday waiting for someone, I challenged myself to make a complete painting in one day. I stretched and primed some canvases on Thursday night and hit the ground running at about 6.30 in the morning. I'm a notoriously slow painter. Most works take weeks, even months so it was a ridiculous challenge. By mid-afternoon when the guy finished checking out the attic, I realized I might actually be able to complete, not one but two paintings in a day. Right around 11pm these two were deemed finished. ![]() Though I like to draw, the idea of sketching has never really been part of my practice. Typically I consider my works on paper to be finished pieces. Sometimes I do quick "sketches" to work out specific problems for a painting but I don't simply sketch stuff without a specific reason. These works on paper launch a new series and are potential studies for future paintings, but right now I think of them as stand-alone pieces. I am enjoying the directness of the mark making. I think of myself as a painterly painter, and these drawings build up colors and surfaces in a similar manner as my paintings, only the marks are more obvious here. I suspect some of this technique will work its way into my new paintings. |
EnthusiasmsRamblings about art, music, literature, food, beverages and other interests that generally affect my work in some way Archives
December 2016
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