Hello from County Cork!

I’ve been doing a lot of “dips” here in Ireland.  That’s what I call my process of dipping canvases in a pool of different materials.

We had a patch of bad weather with gale-force winds and rain.  I hate to let all of that power of Mother Nature go unused, so I took many of my unstretched canvases that I finished last year, nailed them up on the outside of the studio walls, and let the wind and rain have their way with them.  It was great until one of them almost blew into the ocean!  It was about 8 feet by 4 feet, but I was able to grab it in time.

On our cliff, the wind comes straight in, so it’s like taking a fire hose to your paintings.

To me, what happened to the canvases was from the principle that the things that aren’t supposed to be there get washed away, and the things that are supposed to be there, dramatically shine out.  It’s fun to watch what happens over a period of days.

Because I work outside, I have to keep one eye on the clouds and one on the door.  It’s always a challenge to get everything under cover.  This time I was fortunate that the rain came just as I was going to put water on the canvases anyway!

The system is:  oil and water, which they say will never mix; solvent; linseed oil; polyurethane; 7 different colors; 3 different kinds of concrete; and different kinds of gesso.  They have a great time swimming around together!

I’m always throwing paper into the mix, too, to sop up the great colors.  And then I introduce one to the other to the other.  I’m the ringmaster, putting them up on racks.

It’s very athletic:  lots of movement.  I go around working on these huge 10x10-foot tables, circling the table 16 to 22 times, and then everything has to be piled up and manipulated with sticks and stones and then put up on racks.

By the time my 78-year-old body drags itself into the house, it’s screaming, “You idiot!  Who the hell do you think you are?”

But I love it!

Matt