Ben Pines' Art & Travel Blog

It has been sunny and humid here in Bloomington. Yesterday afternoon I spent some time indoors, with the a/c on intermittently, getting more settled in to my living space. Several boxes were unpacked, the contents sorted through and placed in what seem like sensible places. I tacked large canvas pieces to two of the walls, so I have spaces to work on larger paintings leaned up against the wall without damaging the apartment. Before I moved in I had put a canvas tarp on the floor, stapling it to the baseboards of the walls so it stays in place. There are several boxes of paintings to take to my storage space, then two more boxes with assorted apartment stuff to go through. In the morning the town seems to wake up slowly. It is quiet here at 8:30. Based on my memories of living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, it is much more relaxed here. People are out walking their dogs now. Through my north-facing window, the east light of the morning sun, on this partly sunny morni...

My fall semester started this week, here in Bloomington, with the first meeting of my Color Design class at Ivy Tech. Afterward I had a private painting lesson with one of my students. I had been somewhat anxious about both meetings. It was my first time teaching a class since May, and I had been scrambling to update the course material in time for the first day of class, after moving, and finishing the paintings I was working on all summer.   For the private lesson, it was my first one at the new studio/apartment, and I haven’t really finished unpacking. But I think the space was adequate. As my student was arriving, I got a call from an unfamiliar number. The caller turned out to be a soft-spoken woman with an accent, who was calling on behalf of the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts. I had trouble hearing her. She was looking for people to renew their membership with the museum. When I visited Montr é al in May of last year, for two weeks, I signed up for a full...

I am getting settled in my new apartment, and studio. My window faces out on a well-lit street, which is a change from my previous place. There I had windows on three sides, but the apartment was at the back of a house, so the views mostly looked verdantly suburban, almost rural. Here in my new place orange light from the street lights, slightly augmented by lights on the building across the street, and reflection from the paved parking lot and wide street, shines in when I turn out the light at night. Street lights, and the closed blinds, project a dull orange, geometrically bounded striped pattern on the floor. It feels more city-like here than it did at my last place. I was expecting this, and hoping it would inspire me in a way similar to my brief stays in city apartments in my travels. One thing that I liked about several of the apartments I have stayed in, during visits to Europe and Canada, is how quiet the living space could be, even close to a center of activity. Wit...

I moved to my new studio and living space last Tuesday. The unpacking isn’t done yet. Back at the previous apartment not much got weeded out, it just got put in boxes. So here it all is, questionably interesting or valuable, offering one opportunity after another to make a decision. Keep, recycle, landfill. If I keep it, where does it go? Back to working on paintings. I repainted the part of the sleeve that I mentioned in my previous blog post. But when I was working on it the other day, here at the new place, the work did not have that heightened-awareness 'key to the painting' feeling. At the time of my previous blog post I was imagining a work session in which, if I got the color shape for the area on the sleeve very well designed, it would spark the painting to life, and I'd be done, or close to it. Since painting is not a time-based art form, it isn't clear which part of a painting was painted last when you first look at it. Seeing it come together woul...