We went to a really nice exhibit today in the modern architecture setting of Metrohouse, where they were showing the work of 3 local artists: Andrew Long, Steven Dubov and Roi James. Great venue in which all the work looked fabulous!

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Andrew's -- of both his work and his person. He showed a lot of small paintings I hadn't seen before, and several of the tiny 8x8's, including one of my very favorites. He also showed his latest large works and some beautiful medium-sized pieces.

I love how his work is informed by his years of experience as a choreographer. You can enter his paintings in one place, imagine yourself sliding under or behind a shape and coming up between several of the other shapes.

Stephen Dubov's work is really something...he's using windshield glass and breaking and bending it, then tying it together with bolts and cables and weights in some incredible ways. He compared his work to humans -- fragile and vulnerable, yet sharp and tough. He talked about art and beauty over the last many decades -- in the 40's, when art and beauty got a divorce, as he put it; then in the 50's when art started abusing beauty. Now, he hopes there may be a reconciliation. He's courting beauty.

He said he started out working figuratively, but there were things he didn't like about his work and other things he did, so he quit doing the stuff he didn't like and kept exploring the other stuff, so now his work is no longer figurative.

Roi James was showing a wide variety of his work - from some Old Master style landscapes and a really stunningly well-painted piece of a pregnant woman to abstracts both really large and really small. He talked about the skills required to learn to paint like the Old Masters, yet (if I remember this correctly), that work becomes just an execution of that learned skillset, and doesn't lead him to places of exploration and discovery the way that abstract work does (I couldn't agree more!). He also said he's trying to find a way or ways to meld abstraction and representation.

Again, we are on the same or very similar quest in that regard (though I am certainly not comparing my work to his; just a shared desire to bring these two types of painting together in some sort of interesting juxtaposition).

At the end of the day--I can't believe I did this--I actually bought a small piece of Andrew's! I love it; it looks fabulous in my house, and even looks great next to my own work. Woo-hoo!

“Succession 01 #4-4 (The Seed)”
Oil on Canvas
12″ x 12″ (part of 20-panel series, O.D. 48" x 60")
© 2008 Marilyn Fenn

Every time I take a class with the wonderful painter Andrew Long, my work starts changing...

I took a class with him last spring, which helped greatly in the development of my rather freeform abstract encaustic paintings.

I took a longer version of the same class with him this past fall, and my work is evolving again. He really makes you think in ways you haven't thought before.

I have started several new series in the past many weeks. I am working out some new ideas I'm having about painting through these several series of paintings.

I plan for the final work in the first series to be a large painting made up of many 12"x12" paintings. The process of creating each new work in this series evolves from the previous work. The first painting is the seed for the whole series, and each new painting unfolds from an edge of the previous painting, continuing from the previous work, yet with the freedom for each new panel to go in a slightly different direction.

This is the first one.

Class notes from Reinventing Your Creative Process with Andrew Long, Fall 2007

I am so going to miss these classes with Andrew Long.  He said this would be a life-altering experience, and as grand a claim as that may sound, he wasn't kidding.

My work changed fairly dramatically after taking the first version of this class with him last spring.  I started aiming again for complete abstraction (often my first love when viewing art) -- just playing in the studio, and following the brush where it led.  I was experiencing a real joy in painting - not that I haven't usually over the past decade or more, but now I was giving myself permission to explore with a new kind of freedom.  Some of the paintings I did in the past 6 months or so have been more successful than others, and I do really love them.

But when presented with questions like, "why are you painting what you're painting?"  "Are you saying something?"  "What's the difference between this painting and wallpaper or a tablecloth or whatever?" -- I had to take a step back, take a good hard look, try to evaluate my own work without that proud attachment of "I did this" achievement. It's been a very painful week of soul-searching.

I have no idea if I'm ever going to be a painter who does more than pretty paintings to decorate your living room walls with.  But, my concerns are deeper than that, my interests are broad and varied -- I hope I can finally find a way to incorporate all my visual interests with the less visual topics that fascinate me into a cohesive body of work -- my own world of interests, coming together in a beautiful visual language or world of my own.  Why not mix abstraction, representation, diagramming, mapping, and all visual forms of communication on the same canvas?

Give me 6 months, a year, maybe two -- or perhaps more -- and let's see if I can really re-invent myself this time into a painter that bears paying attention to.