Craig Albright Painting and...: 2017

Having spent the last 19 years focused on food production, labor costs, and maximizing efficiencies, it astounds me just how inefficient I am as a painter. My output is irregular, my labor is high, and at the end of any given day, I may have nothing to show for it. In food production the goal is to output the greatest quantity of a consistent product as efficiently as possible. My goal in painting each day is to make some forward progress on at least one painting.

I typically work on several paintings at a time (up to 5 or 6). Each painting may be at a different stage of its life: just beginning, early development, becoming something, fully realized, heavily reworked, destroyed, rediscovered, or something entirely different. There are times when a "finished" painting may be subject to this entire process all over again.

Sometimes when I am feeling like Sisyphus, I almost envy those painters who know exactly what their final image will look like...you know those painters who start with an eyeball, painting it in photographic detail, and then moving on to the other eyeball, the rest of the canvas bare, but each patch being fully realized before they move on to a new area. But then I think, "Where is the fun in that?" It seems akin to carefully filling in a coloring book with the design predetermined and the outcome all but guaranteed.

It is a love/hate thing to build a painting, kill it, try to renew it or rebirth it. I'm not sure if it fulfills a god complex or a sadistic one; maybe these are not mutually exclusive?

As evidence of this manic struggle, here are three stages of the same painting:

Early-middle stage.

At this stage I thought I was closing in on an decent painting. But it needed something....

Mid-revision stage.

I intentionally introduce a different pallet and experiment with paint application, but feel the subject is becoming too literal. To paraphrase David Lowery of Cracker, "What the world needs now, is another Urban Street scene painter, like I need a hole in my head."

This is when I get desperate, angry, motivated, and if lucky, inspired. I had a painting I liked. I ruined it. I made something that started to work...but felt too pretty. WTF is wrong with me? Why did I ever decide to be a painter? I suck...wait...no...maybe if I.....It's go time Madelbaum!

Reboot stage or finished???

One of my favorite tricks or worst habits is to flip a painting. When the painting is either not working or feeling too closed off, I turn it upside down to "reopen" it. Suddenly I like the painting again and it is interesting to me. Now I just need to have some to take it away from me...or maybe if I try...

Until next time. Thanks for reading.

Craig

It has been several months since my last update. The good news is that I have been painting throughout since my last post. For the first time since the late 1990's I have had a studio space that is sufficiently heated to work through the winter months here in Iowa. Although my studio/workshop is still not completely renovated, it is workable for up to medium size paintings. I am really itching to get some 4-6 foot sized canvases or panels prepped up. I feel some momentum building and am regaining my discipline to work regularly, if not yet daily. Life in my 50's is quite different than it was in my 30's and finding the time or energy to work 12 hours, 7 days a week, in my studio is impossible. Of course having a family and a demanding day job are major contributors to this effect.

For now I thought I would share some of the smaller/medium works that I have been doing in the past few months. As with most of my work, the subject is inspired by the Iowa landscape and the weather. My images are almost always imagined or from a vague memory, or completely invented during the act of painting.

I hope you enjoy and thanks for checking in, Craig