GAS
Once and awhile Sharon and I like to go gambling at Morongo Casino in Cabazon. I play poker and she plays blackjack, we both limit ourselves to $100. I got played out early that afternoon so I walked across the way to a giant cement plant and the night guard was friendly and let me takes some night photo's. It was to dark so I didn't take very may good one's and have yet to do a painting from one of them.
When I was walking back to the casino I took a few shots of the Morongo gas station and ended up liking one shot enough to do this painting. I always wanted to do a gas station painting since I saw Ed Ruscha's gas station painting in a museum show when I was a child.
He was one of the few modern artists I liked as a kid because I could understand his images and his sense of humor. I took 35 years to do my gas station, better late than never.
posted by william wray at 11:48 AM
28 Comments:
Wow! Love that intense and believable lighting!
The midnight respite. Always a welcome sight on those long, dark roadtrips. Maybe not so much the ones where there's a body in the trunk, though.
That is so outstanding; it looks like it belongs in a museum already. Outstanding design!
It's odd, but I really like gas stations too. Great painting, sir!
Fantastic! Perhaps my favorite of all the pieces I've seen online. Great composition and use of space.
thanks Deano!
Jeff -- Try and live a little longer, we need you here.
Hey BG I got a great complemnt from a cab driver. He dosen't like it, it feels all to real to him.
Hey BG I got a great complemnt from a cab driver. He dosen't like it, it feels all to real to him.
Leslie-- After I'm dead! Seriously though I like it enough that I'm going to keep it for awhile despite promising it to my gallery.
Hey Dan,
Funny how we don't realize these things until we realize these things.
thatks Copper,
I'm going to hold onto for a bit. I try and keep ahold of the better "modern ones" the goal being a "A" level modern gallery in the next year or two.
Definitlely hang on to this one, it's a level up (IMO) and I see all the modern qualities in it that you've been striving for.
killer man - i love this one
Good one Will. The mood reminds me of the parking garage structure you did a few months back... kind of that Hopper lonely isolated feel. Work that produces that feeling is a real attention grabber for me.
Yea, Hopper would like this one...
Very nice graphic effect. Nocturnes are so difficult, especially with color/value relationships... plus all of the glare issues on the finished artwork.
Leslie-- thanks, I wish I could do it everytime. Been hitting the wall lately...
thanks Miles!
thanks WK that's how I often feel in my heart. I'm lucky I can harness that melancholy into something productive. Thank God my Dad made me feel worthless and alone and my Mom showed me good art.
thanks C. I don't know if that's true but lets dream...
thanks tony-- I'm strating to feel more comfortable with them... Sometimes!
Also reminds me of my hitch hiking days (if you are born after 1985 you don't know what that is). I can't tell you how many times I've been dropped off in gas stations just like this one in the middle of nowhere. And in the middle of the night with bad weather and the prospects of another ride very slim. Now that's a Hopper moment! Anyone in the L.A. area want to swap hitch hiking stories over some coffee... at a greasy spoon somewhere... let me know - hee
Blight is beautiful! I'm guessing someone has that already bit of alliteration already. You apply the paint just the way the subject matter demands.
I come here via Mike Dooney's site. It's fun to go from link to link discovering new stuff. Oh, and I grew up traveling the world via the military brat way as well. So, I salute you.
PS: I just heard from Vince Giarrano. After I wrote to you I linked him to you because I thought the two of you had something in common. Apparently unnecessarily.
WK- are you sure you want to make that invation?
thanks Tom-- I just E- mailed Vince--I didn't think he had a blog. Yeah we worked together in comics and both stated to do the fine art thing at about the same time. Welcome to the bolg.
I know Vince from real life. He lives 15 minutes north of me. I'll likely see him this weekend either at the local artists' breakfast or at the opening of a show he has art in.
Vince has a nice website: http://giarrano.com/index.htm but no blog.
It's funny how I accidently found out you know each other. I just happened to notice the thing you both had in common, that you'd left comics and went to painting. Oh, I'm also a Ren & Stimpy fan but who isn't?
Post a Comment
<< Home