Friday, January 2, 2009

Coming Home - Some More - Red Bird

So with all of Linda's revisions of Landscape in Red (1, 2, 3), I had to look again at Coming Home. I was not totally happy with the bird. I realized I wanted him to be more red. And while I was at it, there were some green, blue, and other things to do, especially in the lower far left, where the light shape was stronger than I wanted (aiding visual exit from the picture plane, something I try to avoid). And I wanted to emphasize more of the positive and negative bars from the sky down to the roof tops. So here it is after those revisions.

But I made the bird too red - under the wing - and so I had to paint him yet again. Done now? I don't know.

And I just realized that he's probably another manifestation of Virgil Tangelo. When I look at him and ask I hear a silent laugh. Are all of my paintings self portraits? And why is my alter ego a redhead?

>>>> Appendix de Grenouille <<<< For Noel Etienne's cheri gave him a lizard. A lizard tres tres rouge. I am revealing to him the ropes, as Etienne puts it. For instance, how to stay up on this shelf without falling off, and how to get attention so more photos will be taken. Today the bird in the painting was making red the prima donna color (oui, perhaps rouge is always the prima donna) and this got the lizard some attention simple. Eventually he may even have a name, but that was twenty years for moi. Etienne may have removable teeth prior (I will, of course, retain both of mine - firestone is eternal).

And I should, perhaps, introduce the Dunny Francois. He is a Dunny series quatre, of the French special editions. Voila, he is exactimonde the Dunny 4 French that Etienne most desired, and the only one he received (Noel, last year). He even has his baguette and vin rouge, his beret noir, and the nez rouge of the Frenchman epicure. Now I understand Etienne has stashed four boxes with Dunny series cinque. He is being tantalized, he says, enjoying resisting the urge to open the boxes. He thought of opening one today, when he got home from work, but he resisted. So there are still four to anticipate. I foretell he will open the first only when the temptation wanes.

And that glass between the lizard and the Dunny is a toy from the days of the queen of Angleterre called Victoria. One fills it with deliciously detailed small objects (Etienne chose some intricate trres petit sea shells) and you agitate them gently, look, agitate encore and look encore. Oui, exciting, no? Actually, Etienne has given me a glimpse, and it makes me wonder how I would appear from inside the glass. Le Grenouille Tres Grand! Terror to bullfrogs Americain!

Even un petit grenouille tres confiant (c'est moi) may amuse himself with dreams.

Au revoir,

Grenouille

5 comments:

The Cunning Runt said...

If I may say so, I prefer the redder bird, as the variation from top to bottom reflects more my perception of Light on Reality. It's kind of a perceptual reverse of lightening the bottoms of things to make them disappear!

But either way, I love your resolution of the houses, they really seem to have assumed their proper places in this one!

Leah said...

I do tend to think that all our art is some kind of self-portrait. I love the bird!

Genie Sea said...

I like the bird in its final manifestation. I love the colors in this piece.

Isn't all forms of art a self-portrait so to speak? Some people have more personages in their psyche than others. :)

Perhaps the red hair encapsulates your passion for les arts. :)

Dunny is certainly cutely quirky and très français! :)

Sweet rêve!

L'Adelaide said...

I have to say I have little idea what you are talking about with a dunny but anyway...it seems grenouille is getting a little too french for me...must have a french girlfriend or something...

I like the painting...and you really made me laugh with your wondering about the self-portrait...hmm, do you see yourself being able to fly ;) ?

I am wondering about the house in the bottom left, mine...I don't understand that whitish look to it? maybe I am not seeing what it is supposed to be? I thought it wasn't done but now it is? just a little confused on it but otherwise, love it...I really like the bird now!

Steve Emery said...

Cunning Runt - I know what you mean about the coloration. But I was responding purely to the painting's needs, and that redder bird was stealing the scene. I couldn't see anything else. So he had to be toned down.

Leah - I hadn't thought of it that way, but you and Linda got me started thinking that way, and suddenly I see how much has been coming out in my images.

Genie Sea - Thanks! I think (like Jung) that we have a lot inside us, bubbling up into individual space, but also (if we go down deep enough) we hit a shared place, where powerful images are shared by all of us. The archetypes - the concepts that shape the mental universe, and drive things like meditation, prayer, tarot cards, humanity's long relationship with things like muses, daemons (Greek), angelic messages, dreams, and more. I think it's where our minds and souls overlap with the rest of the spiritual realm and deity. It's part of what I mean when I say I want to paint the inside of my heart.

Linda - I often fly in dreams - usually in my own form, though. Actually when I drive I sometimes feel like I'm reaching forward with my wings... But mostly I think the bird is Virgil playing with/through my brush again. The dunny, by the way, is that little plastic figure on the right of the photo. They're designed by artists (often street artists) and boxed so you buy them blind. You never know which one you have until you purchase it and open it. I like that.

As for the white house... First, I'm glad you feel it's your house. That means I got part of the job done well enough. It's meant to feel like home - wherever that is for the viewer. For me, though, home has always been a white house. All three of the homes I've loved most and lived in longest were white.