Surreal Red Hook and John Keats

A surreal Red Hook painting, the eighth in the series.  Not to worry; I'll be moving to a different location for the next one.  This one is 8x10 oil on panel.

I'm currently reading the fabulous biography of John Keats by Walter Jackson Bate.  In his late teens, Keats knew he wanted to be a poet, but he did not know what to write about.  So, at first, he wrote poetry about writing poetry.  How modern.

If Only They Kept Coming

The seventh Red Hook, an 8x10 oil on panel.

I've just finished reading Night Studio, a memoir, written by Musa Mayer, the daughter of the painter Philip Guston.  One enviable takeaway for me is the constant and exciting creativity that came upon Philip Guston in the last twelve years of his life.  No matter what you may think of his paintings and drawings from this period, he kept finding and inventing new visual ideas pulled from his own experience.  It's as if he didn't know they were there, but when he started tapping the source, they kept coming and coming.

Smaller Red Hook

A smaller 8x10 Red Hook painting, sixth in the recent Red Hook series.

Red Hook 5

The fifth painting in the Red Hook series, a 9x12 oil on panel.

Fourth Red Hook

Since this is the fourth Red Hook painting in a row, I suppose I should call it part of the Red Hook series, a 9x12 oil on panel.

Red Hook Dead End Sign

A third 9x12 oil on panel of a street corner with a Dead End sign in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

A Red Hook Building

Another 9x12 oil on panel of a building in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Red Hook

A 9x12 oil on panel of a street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

Shadows Are

Shadows are things which you can walk through, but they are still quite visible.  The shadows on this 11x14 oil on multimedia board can be found on Seabring Street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

The Perils of Painting

The corner of Nelson Street and Hamilton Avenue in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn: a 14x14 oil on panel painting.

Though I recently said I was offering a final Corot anecdote, here's another:  In 1833, Corot painted two views for the owner of a cloth factory in Soissons, one of the factory itself, a major painting now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  For both paintings, Corot received nothing.  One Corot scholar wrote, "Corot was considered an amateur; does one offer money to such people?"

It's Hard to See

A 12x12 oil on panel of the corner of Smith Street and Hamilton Avenue next to the Gowanus Expressway in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.

Here's something to think about, a line from the Robert Hass poem "Consciousness,"


It's hard to see what you're seeing with, to see what being is as an

activity through the instrument of whatever-it-is we have being in.

A Tree in Brooklyn and Expectations

A 12x12 oil on canvas of a sycamore tree on Coles Street looking toward Sebring Street in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

In a short, perceptive essay on Corot, S. Lane Faison, Jr. wrote, "He did not not sell a picture until he was fifty-six, a fact which should remind us how little his work conformed to the academic expectations of his day."  This may seem hard to believe today.  But the real lesson about "expectations" affecting and interfering with one's vision is not restricted to the 19th century.

Gowanus Expressway and How to Judge a Book

Facing north this time, we present a 12x12 oil on canvas view of Hamilton Avenue under the Gowanus Expressway.

One final anecdote from the Corot catalog: Corot painted several pictures of women reading.  "According to Theophile Silvestre, a contemporary of Corot, the artist hardly ever read, but he bought books along the quays, 'exclusively for their shapes and colors,' in order to put them into the hands of his models."

Covered Sidewalk

An 18x24 oil on canvas of the covered sidewalk on Van Brunt Street approaching Hamilton in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, near the cruise terminal.

Up Is Down

A literal view of Conover Street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.  The street is always wet at this spot because its where a bus company washes its busses.  I always look down as well as straight ahead and up (sometimes behind me too).  You never know when you will see the sky in the pavement.

The Beauty of Grungy

This view of Red Hook is at the corner of Dykeman and Ferris Streets.  There can be beauty in grungy industrial settings, especially if the light is right.  This is a 9x12 oil on canvas.

Sun Behind Me

Another Red Hook view,  down Van Dyke Street near the corner of Dwight Street.  The sun was behind me.

Bright Corner

This 9x12 oil on canvas painting looks a bit surreal, but it demonstrates what I like about Brooklyn.  I'm still in the Red Hook section, with the early morning sun, at the corner of Richards and Commerce, where one building has been painted red, and another partly bright yellow, possibly to cover up graffiti.  It's the unusual and bright colors that I like.  Did someone just grab whatever paint was lying around to do the job?  I left off the graffiti that has since reappeared over the yellow,  only because the painting was too detailed as it is.  That was the challenge of this painting, how to simplify a complicated street corner.

Into Red Hook

This past weekend I spent Sunday morning in Red Hook.  This 9x12 oil on canvas is a view of Richards Street near Seabring.  When painting these pictures, I'm trying to be as direct and quick as I can.  

Red Hook and Queen Mary

A couple days ago I wrote that I would try both country plein air and city studio.  Here's a view down Richards Street in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, an 8x10 pen and ink drawing, and an 18x24 oil on canvas.

As I wandered around Red Hook this past weekend, I happened to look down a street and saw an amazing sight.  Closer examination revealed the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner, which had just arrived.