Bloomington



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 morning, is a magical, strong light coming from offstage to the right. Or stage left, as it would be in the theatre.

Working on an oil painting now, that will, I hope, be added in December to an installation. More details on that should be coming soon.

Oil paint is rich, heavily pigmented, compared with acrylic. It is also messy and inconvenient. I think it will be quite a while before the paint I just put down is dry, there is a lot of slow-drying titanium white in it. Until it is dry I have to be very careful touching or moving it, which is annoying, since I am working in a small space, and I will have to move it a lot to get to different things.

You can get alkyd driers to add to oil paint, but the fumes irritate both my eyes and my lungs, so I don't use them. It would be nice to have a warehouse studio, where it wouldn't matter if I get paint on things. But an advantage of my current situation is that I can work whenever I want. The first thing I did this morning after getting out of bed was to paint on the painting, which I found to be a good way to start the day. 

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