Mused

I'll tell you what I like about music.  The way it slaps you in the face, kindly.  The way it inspires, gently.  The way it literally moves my hand in the right rhythm.  I can't paint without a soundtrack.  Really, to be honest, I don't like to do anything without music.  Regardless of genre (except country, never country), music enhances the experience.  The soundtrack I choose is always intentional and is generally an album at a time.  Tonight, I started with Alabama Shakes which alphabetically led to Alela Diane.  Beautiful.  Appropriate and driving yet calming.  And then this lyric slapped me in the face, gently : "I won't drag my feet in whatever dirt you track in."

This series that I'm working on is incredibly personal.  Dealing, mostly, with internal struggle, and touching on ambiguous outward pressures.  As the only internal struggle that I'm intimate with is my own, this work is becoming incredibly personal.  It's lyrics like this that then push me to paint -- to overcome.  Turning those experiences that challenge, that hurt, into a positive element.

So here's an in progress shot of a piece in this series...in which the figure is fighting.  Exhausted.  Pained.  Yet, fighting.  Not letting the dirt be dragged in.

Side note : I love painting ears.  For some reason, this has always been the easiest body part to render, simply.  A line of red.  A glob of lighter flesh.  Boom - eartime.  I have local painter Luke Hillestad to thank for that.  I once noticed an ear in his painting (actually a show at the building I have my studio in now) and it blew my freaking mind on how simple the gestures were but how real it looked.  A few strokes becomes a piece of flesh.  Magic.