Beautiful decay

There's a decaying sign in the Spring Street C and E subway station that's been catching my eye. It brings to mind a quote of da Vinci's: 

It should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which... you may find really marvelous ideas. 

I took a photo of this sign this morning:

Lola and Lucius in Bethany Beach

I took these four shots while we were down in Bethany Beach last week on vacation:

Downtown NYC

I took a walk around downtown Manhattan on Sunday. I brought my camera and took these shots:

Delaware

My family and I are spending the week in Bethany Beach, Delaware. Here are a few pictures I have taken:

New small works

I've been busy the last couple of weeks. Here's what the studio looks like now:

And here are some of the pieces I finished this week:

Here's a piece I am working with two figures. It's based on one of Botticelli's annunciations:

I'm continuing to work small. That said, I gessoed this 36" x 36" panel this morning:

I'm feeling ready to work larger, and I'm looking forward to it. 

On a failure and sticktoitiveness

Last month a friend of mine, artist Jim Angell, suggested I mix graphite powder with the encaustic I'm working with. Taking his advice I bought some powder, mixed it in the encaustic, and created this:

As you can see, I'm having some difficulties getting the proportions of graphite to encaustic right. So rather than give up, I tried it again, using a touch less graphite:

I was intrigued with this. But I wasn't crazy about the brushstrokes; I wanted the medium to be even. So I tried another version:

I like the quality the encaustic is taking on with this one. But the image is now too subtle. I do like the ghostly quality this piece is taking.

I've also begun experimenting with portraits on a black background. I didn't think they would work, but I'm excited with how they came out:

I also finished this video-loop the other day:

I was asked to put together an artist statement for my video work. Uh oh. I find artist statements impossible to write. The other day I was given the advice not to use the word "visceral." Apparently it's used constantly. After this I reread my most recent statement and found "visceral" in the first paragraph. 

I enjoy blogging about my work. And one would think that this would translate to enthusiasm for writing a statement. But doing so is like pulling teeth for me.