PRETEND

I've been pressing forth with new work in the studio, and I'm excited by what has been unfolding. The work was photographed yesterday, and today I labored over my 150 word statement to present with the work. I have seven paintings and five collages which I look forward to displaying in the online-only gallery, Galerie Cerulean, at Abstract Art Online, beginning February 27, 2012. The Galerie is a project conceived by Joe Walentini, who is also an abstract painter; he began his website writing reviews of gallery shows in New York in the 1990's. A few years ago he changed his mission to showing the work of a selection of artists, keeping a schedule like any other gallery, but always online-only. He was a pioneer; now there are many more online venues for artists, and people are more accustomed to viewing work this way. The internet has opened up minds and entire worlds for artists, especially for those of us who are unrepresented and/or located a little off the beaten track. As I like to say, a deadline can be a lifeline.

My studio in Lambertville, New Jersey is in an old stone building, and the back room in which I work has (other than skylights and a back door) only one narrow window, where I sometimes stand to rest my eyes on something more distant than my work. There are trees and buildings, and my line of sight is pretty narrow, landing on a sign that reads "DEAD END." The sign is old, bent, and a bit of graffiti has been attempted on its fading paint. It is set rather high, maybe to be at the eye level of truck drivers. Otherwise I might have gone out there to deface it myself! I often looked at those words, "DEAD END," and imagined how I could transform them into a more uplifting image for my fatigued vision.

The intersection is on my walk to the cafe or the natural foods store, and I imagined myself dressed as a public works employee, dragging a ladder over with a small can of black paint, to carefully change the text so that maybe no one would even notice that instead of DEAD END it might read:

PRET

END

Here is a small painting I recently completed which I will not be exhibiting with the others:

PRETEND, 2012, oil on canvas, 4 x 6 inches

Well instead of carrying out this plot, I made my small painting, a sunny diamond in an elliptical sky. Or maybe this is just a sketch for my future career as street vandal? Nah. I am ever grateful for the opportunity to picture my world, and change it in my imagination, or by making with my hands a new image of what seemed immutable.