January 21, 2012

Current favorite poem: sonnet #31 from Sidney’s “Astrophil and Stella.”

Gingrich wins in South Carolina. Of course, I’m for anything that causes dismay and discord among the elephants, and I do appreciate Gingrich’s impatience with the media, but he is, ultimately, even more terrifying than Romney, for I sense in Romney a moral grain–even if one antithetical to mine–but in Gingrich only the will to power.

Much painting today, good progress on several fronts. At noon I was embedding crow feathers in deep impasto. In the dark of evening I was painting a particularly fierce wolverine on a ground of flowing cloth, held to the canvas with acrylic medium. Writing is never accidental or fortuitous; painting sometimes is, adding interest to the hours spent alone in the studio. I still miss Jason’s company. It’s different painting with another, and, aside from the perils of being subjected to the wrong music, better. Though I can’t converse and write, I can and would prefer to converse and paint. The glassblowers blare this amazing techno trance music from across the library. I actually like it, though I have to close my door against the volume. I think this is the first evening painting I’ve done in that space. Of course, in the dark, the wild thing come out of the river, and one must be very careful.

K and I collaborate on a project involving braille and Thoreau. I remember when we shared studio space determining to make him my friend. That happened, but at no time did I actually understand his mind. It seems very mathematical, almost computer-like, and the work he’s doing now a working out to some extreme decimal a few simple ideas. His worksmanship and perfectionism are remarkable, and unapproachable to one such as myself, who thinks the work is done when it says–to me–what I wanted it to say. I never repeat, even when I should. His work IS repetition, dots, loops, whatever has struck him at the time, extended into epics, into dispensations. I am mostly idea with just enough execution to get the point across. His ideas are fascinating, but his execution approaches the level of fanaticism. I honor it, if I can’t quite share it. He’s the one who’s making money at it.