Paul Huet (1804-1869)

Renoir - Les Baigneuses

When you get so large that your perfumey pink flesh hovers in animated rungs around your body and you are now a living buoy, please call me.

Delacroix, The Lion Hunt

There is a study of this painting in the Orsay, I can't find a good image of it online, but the finished one is almost as intense.

Ok wait, here is the study:



I like it better, it is more roiling and in flux. Hurts are easier to imagine here.

L'Asperge

Ok seriously this was my favorite painting in the Musee D'Orsay. I will post more but...is it just me or is the history of every painting contained in the inflamed tip of this vegetable and the countertop it rests on?

Christmas Retardation

Really have a great Christmas if it is your thing. Enjoy the the atmosphere of selfish consumption and lackluster party planning. Allow yourself to ingest rapid amounts of curdled blood and sink your teeth into the flesh of people's arms who mean nothing to you. Please drool. Please excrete foamy mal-digested pointilist liquid tableaux into your toilet. Take a picture of it and send it to me. Send it via fax or regular mail it doesn't matter.

More Blart

Felix Vallatton, The Church of Souain, 1917


Angela Dufresne, Me and Bruce Lee and another famous yet un-nameable man on the shore in front of an unmade building by Frank Lloyd Wright called the Donahue Triptych, 2004


Mark Bradford, Scorched Earth, 2006

Pleasant dying arches to find your lack of way in.

Tato, Pousette-Dart & Hartung

"Wols" or Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (1913-1951)

Jean Fautrier (1898-1964)

French artist Jean Fautrier fought in WW I, like many artists of that time. His paintings anticipated the emergence of Art Informel, the European counterpart to Abstract Expressionism. They are dark and ominous, smeared and hazy. Here are two paintings of glaciers from 1926:




From 1934 to 1939 Fautrier stopped painting, became a ski instructor and ran a jazz nightclub in the French Alps.

Later, when he returned to Paris during WW II, he worked in a studio that was near a wooded area where the Nazis executed their prisoners. At night he could hear the screaming victims. In response he created the "Otage" (Hostage) series, which includes sculpture as well as paintings. The paintings feature thickly applied paint and plaster and crudely articulated scribble-like gestures to evoke primitive heads with bumps and holes instead of features, chunks of flesh with bloody gashes.




After the war, he turned to more everyday objects, depicting them in a confectionary palette of pastel hues - but they are painted in the same style as the Otages. The strange and somewhat problematic fusion of kitsch and the horrors of war is interesting to me. As his friend Francis Ponge wrote, Fautrier combines "brilliant discomfort and rage in a smooth bouquet."

There is a great article by David Ebony on Fautrier (Art in America, September 2003). You should read that.

Peveril Castle

It's up a steep steep incline in the town of Castleton in Derbyshire, England. My grandmother is 4 feet tall & lives nearby. When I go to visit I hike in the peaks and valleys and woods. It is the fairy territory, it is magical and hurts me in the kidneys, it is part of me like a fun virus. Fun virus, come to me and stay.

Samuel Palmer, Otto Dix, Jean Fautrier, Asger Jorn

Everyday Stains

A stain is nothing to be ashamed of. You can embrace the discoloration. As long as the smell factor is kept in check. There has been an obliteration but there is hope for the sessions to re-convene.

I am tired and full of mystery and portent. Super tired.

Herve Sings

It's not ok, I know. I did it anyway. Make sure you stay tuned until the symmetrical morph comes. Stay tuned.

Hi

I am in hiding, incognito, preparing to go on the lam. I am going to cut all my hair off like Helen Slater in The Legend of Billie Jean. I am on a fake rampage wherein I will steal gum and sleep on a tuffet when I am not yelling (FB I admit it I am a yeller too) or wielding sticks in the wind.

I am visiting the parents this weekend and these are the things I think of. UF is in California, the bum. Why I didn't go is right now a mystery to me. I could have gone to a puppet show video festival thing in Joshua Tree where our video is being shown. But I didn't. I could have called the Capt'n to say ahoy.

Did you know that my life is verging on extreme pointlessness? Just curious. Does anyone else feel the same? I know this is a droning repetitive message but there it is. At least my nephew is super cute.

Fat Cat Sat Hat with Bip Bipadotta

Leonard Nimoy Sings About Bilbo Baggins

He forehead dances with girls in sweatshirts.

Muppet Show - Drum Battle Buddy Rich Vs Animal

Stop Smiling

UF and I made a video. This is it. Sharing is caring even if you don't like what is being shared with you. True.

Danger

Things to beware of today:


Rashes


Plumber's Butt


Spilled Juice

There are more, but this is just a start. A friendly warning for your day. You can never be too careful is my motto, although I am rarely careful at all, more careless if anything but whatever. What you see is what you get. Trust your gut. In point of fact it's all you can do get through the day because at the end of the day, it's anyone's game. Speaking of games, it's more important to play than be a winner. Winning isn't everything. Keep your eye on the prize, it's waiting for you at the end of the rainbow as you know. Just follow your heart and you will find yourself in the bottom of a well with full knowledge that your future is bright just as the world comes to an end.

From my heart to yours in cuddles.

Love,

MM

John Martin

He is an old batty painter too. It is good to be old and dead and visionary. Right? Fire in the sky and caverns beneath the earth - this is where they bake the famous tofu loaf.

Love,

Troubled