'City of Glass 14' - (Dialogue) 120 x 80cms

Sunday 8 Dec

It's done!  And so, finally, is my Pollock Krasner Foundation application - ping, there it goes. 20 years in the making according to Denise!

Thurs 5 Dec 

'Possibly, maybe... once again I had big problems with the shock of the change in colour when I took the painting out of the lights in the studio to natural light -the painting looked terrible in daylight- especially the orange which was too dark, too dense, too cold.  This colour shift is always a problem : if you work with a daylight bulb the painting might look terrible in a gallery, so the painting has to work in all kinds of light. Anyhow, in the painting I tuned the orange up, warmed it up and made it more interesting, with the introduction of indian yellow and warm orange glazes and a greater tonal shift from top to bottom.   I did all this as a demonstration in my class at Truro College- thanks for the feedback everyone!  The title 'Dialogue' refers to the dialogue between the left and right sides, between map-shape and image- and of course 'dialogue' has a literary reference. All along I've tried to link the grids of the streets, the grid of the painting itself, my mapping-out grid with the grid of the façade of a building.  The building, giant and sinister, emerged from the paint-  it appears transparent, made of glass...... It's verticality links to the pink block of Central Park, the perspective line of the roof 'talks' to the angled spike of the Williamsburg Bridge.. it seems to lift Manhattan and and make it vertical too.

I love the leverage and breathing space on the bottom edge and I’m happy that, finally, the three canvases have a reason, a purpose and the strength of the lines where they meet add to the painting. They work formally but also, as 42nd St and W107St, they are significant to the novel.

Detail: the Upper West Side, the streets where Stillman walks.......

 
Below in sequence are 3 previous stages of the painting: