Beauty everywhere in my mind

A beautiful man, a beautiful beach a beautiful day, how many times can I paint that? Aparently bunches. I keep finding pictures with odd light effects or great poses that I want to paint Or is it just the men?

 

by jrizz0816

 

Or

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gone

It's so hard not to have Patrick around to chatter with. All the movies and culture and politics not commented on.

 

Will I ever get past an eleven oclock and not think of him? 

My Space Chatter

 My add on Myspace.com: 

One piece of my art... not me... or my piece! 

 

About me:
Boston gay-guy interested in all the regular gay-guy stuff: art, theater, classical music... blah blah. Old enough to have been through disco the first time around, but young enough not to care the second time around! Painting is a passion of mine. I took a few semesters in school but ultimately moved on to more "concrete" interests (Pyschology, history and computers). How odd that the one thing that has stayed with me all through the years - is painting. Even those years when I created nothing and lived in small spaces, I kept my supplies at hand; as close as a new england bed & breakfast keeps it's melancholy ghost.

I love ocean waters. They effect my every sense, even that elusive sixth sense. My very first experience with the ocean was telling. I walked up to the water line, my infant toes right at the edge of the water, and stared open-mouthed at the ebb and flow. After a few hypnotic moments I tasted salt in my mouth and realized with a jolt that was in the surf. I had tottered right over into the surf. My family tell me it was comical but I would have desribed it as magical. Except the scraped shins...

I love the male form (take note of the gay reference above). so my artwork lately features... wait for it... naked men on the beach. It is my hope to one day transend the vision I can see with my eyes and paint the world with the perfect harmony of an enlighted life.

But... I would settle for being able to get the feet right. I don't have a fetish about feet (I think) but I can't help thinking about them. Have you ever really looked at a foot? Try to understand how hard it is to represent a human foot using paint. We are trained to read all kinds of things into the human form. Eyes, lips, hands, even shoulders can be imbued with almost other-worldly meaning. The foot, however, is seen as simply a foot. It wasn't until I started painting that I understood why so many of the old masters spent margin after margin on feet. I have always thought The Mighty Mike and Gaughan are about the only people who really put some personality into it. But enough about feet.

And enough about me.

Now Playing: He went on Wen.
He was improving but an infection, which is what we were all in fear of, set in on Mon. by Tues we knew there was no hope. On Wen., with just me in the room, I held him while they stopped the support. I don't think he was aware of me, but I spoke to him anyway.

In my mother's garden
I am thinking of Alice Walker's (The Color Purple) In My Mother's Garden. It is an essay about the way un unempowered people (poor african american women) created things of beauty, like gardens and quilts, out of a need to empower themselves and leave a lasting memory.

My mother's garden was her children. She tended us diligently. She may have pigeon-holed us a bit early and somewhat stereotypically, but in her defence, there were so damn many of us. I, of course, was the "artiste" from very, very early on.

My good friend of many, many years lies dying unable to move or talk, and I sit with him. A person shouldn't die alone. But as I sit, I think... What is the meaning of this life? What is the meaning of my life? Will I end a collection of stuff that will be fought over and pilfered? Will people who love me know me well enough to know what I would want in-extremis? When I am dead, and the ones who know me are dead, what will the meaning of my life be?

Is that why I paint? Is all this scribbling just more stuff that will be fought over, pilfered away, but, have some value that will last longer than the memory of me?

Sea Fever
by John Masefield


I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,
for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
when the long trick's over.

These words (best know from having been quoted on StarTrek) are so profound to me. And am I the only one that sees obcession and complusion in them?

Swimming / Floating
I keep getting up to do something, but then I can't remember what. I can't get an Annie Lennox song out of my head and I still want to cry at the most inappropriate times. Going from lover to friend is hard, and it's no good thinking you can skip any of the pain.

Selling my soul
I managed to dump some of the pre-painting figures at cost, but the three I put on ebay for a profit didn't go. I marked them down.

The Ex is driving me crazy (well, actually TWO Ex's). I have become one of those guys that think two months means relationship, god help me!

Party in Hull "The Hull Word" a bit boring this time.

Want to loosen up my painting style, but how? Went to a show of some guy that paints "super-realism" canvases of the city of Boston, or maybe it was Rome, who knows. Who cares. Take a picture, it lasts longer.

I did get mesmerized by another work, by a different artist, that I wanted to snatch from the wall and run away with. It was a simple winter bridge scene (yawn) but over all the snow he had painted a flat ice-blue. I looked at his other work and the colors that seemed LOVELY from a distance were actually jarring close up. Hot pink in the fall foliage!

LOOK AT ME! DAMNIT!

A walk in the sun. A kiss on the hand...
What a weekend! Socializing Friday at the Red Parrot in Hull, junk shopping with Marty on Sat, spending the night doing chores (so much better when boring chores are paired with an unboring cutey) and Sun walking a dog on a beautiful spring day.

Party in Hull!
The world, full circle. If gay historians can be believed, gay social life can be traced to "house parties" and then to "private clubs". Well, with the apparent demise of GAY bars (probably due to the ease of internet hook-ups coupled with the destruction of the bar-community self-identity) WWW denizens are once again looking for social company and not just flesh caressing. Since we ALL have that "not into the bar scene" tag on our manhunt profiles what is a community to do? Enter Izzy and her idea: not a radical new one, a tried and true one. Rent out a room in a local restaurant and fill it with friends and strangers (me being one of the stranger ones...)who find out about the event online. Enter: Sexy David and the OMNIBUS EDGE NEW ENGLAND SITE to spread the word. Dozens showed up and I was hoarse from laughing and chatting with every man I saw (cause that's JUST ME.)