May 19, 2020 M*** W***** wrote:
 
Sorry to hear of your plight – sounds fucking horrendous! I always knew there was a bit of the curmudgeon about you, now it sounds as if it’s coming in useful – if not in the regards your living situation, then perhaps in regards your sanity. There’s not much I can do from here – and even if you were here, there’s not much I could do anyway – but send me your address – I’ll send something out of the ordinary, that’s for sure.
 
Dad died a few years ago now – (shit, I was thinking about how many last night and realized I didn’t know – I don’t seem to keep tabs on particulars like that.) It was expected at the time so we were able to say our goodbyes. It hit my sister harder than me – I think she’s still vibrating from it. But that’s to be expected – daughter/father etc etc – “Oi Freud, sit your ass downnn boy”. Mum is good – quarantined up in Ireland. Because of the sectarianism in NI, the ruling executive didn’t know if to turn south or east. At the start of the (govt acknowledges) pandemic, Dublin closed down before Westminster, a little later than Denmark – so from my vantage point here, the quibbles in Belfast and my sister seeing the state of affairs in London – we persuaded her the best things was to batten down the hatches, get in line for the online grocery store deliveries and except the fact that she wasn’t getting to the hairdressers for a while. She’s not gone mad yet.
 
Thanks for looking through the website. I know what you mean about Miro – and I’ve tried to transfer the small up onto a bigger scale. But for some reason it never translates. I have a feeling that it’s a lack of craftsmanship on my part – a lack of knowledge regarding material too. Let me ask, one of the doodles that you admired, how would you go about scaling it up?
 
First trip out on the boat tomorrow – if you don’t hear from me again, whisper “frogmen….. Navnsø” into the investigating officers’ ear.
 
 And no, you can hold onto the underwear. Thanks anyway.
 
 
May 25, 2020 TW wrote:

Welcome back if you made it. How many fish did you count?

I don’t even know if I’d call all this shit my “plight” any more. Seems like it’s gone beyond even that. Yes, it is unbelievably awful, but -thinking back on other times I was U.S. stuck- this strikes me as normal for this fair land. I’ve always been ‘the outsider’ but I’ve always felt it 100% more in America (I realized I’ve only spent about one third of my life in the States). The creatures I described in my concentration camp are pretty representative of all the citizens here…possibly even less disgusting…and actually my complex and its surroundings are probably the best place around. If you can believe that.

You wrote: “I know what you mean about Miro – and I’ve tried to transfer the small up onto a bigger scale. But for some reason it never translate. I have a feeling that it’s a lack of craftsmanship on my part – a lack of knowledge regarding material too. Let me ask, one of the doodles that you admired, how would you go about scaling it up?

Can’t address every doodle or painting but for this discussion the doodle that stayed with me most is maybe the most classical. You only have it named as “Ink on watercolour paper 4xA5” -the paper’s divided into 4 rectangular areas and has shapes both separate and interacting in blues and yellows with heavy black outlines (a good old Expressionist trick). The whole has perfect poetic balance, depth, charm of movement, every emotion including humor …like Miro’ or Paul Klee. Yet it seems calmer than most of the other works. Could be you usually paint from a kind of emotive/music-like source, and maybe this one had a more visual origin

Scaling up? Well, I know with me every painting (and writing) is locked into my head in that first one- thousandth of a second and then the task is to produce that first flash all the way through to the end. I’m mostly known for my wall-sized and mural work, but I put all the same fine detail into those that I would with a miniature (I’ve attached lousy photos of a pic and a detail thereof from a painting I did in 2002 I think Oil on canvas. They might be attached at the bottom of the email)….even the concert and theater backdrops that were 20 x 40 feet. Perhaps when you step up to something that size you lose your internal frame. Or it could be the handling of different materials. It does look to me like rougher handling.

Obviously paintings can take your breath away with their meaning, movement, or a blade of light, or the vigor of a brushstroke, a daring of a dance of colors, but I’ll tell you the real secret to it all is: Composition, composition, composition.

Since most of your work appears to come from movement, you’ll just have to develop that initial visual flash, until you can hold/use it innately, like perfect pitch.
 
Or maybe we’re simply hallucinating the works. In which case you could charge a lot more. Remember: Reality is what you can get away with.
 
June 5, 2020 M*** W***** wrote:
 
Like a bad tooth I can’t leave alone, been obsessively watching your Orange in Chief dismantle the American experiment one china cup at a time. The bible scene shot outside the boarded up church was particularly poignant. I don’t think he cares about how he is remembered, just to be remembered – history enjoys a good villain – and making a horse he can’t ride a general will be the next move – fuck it, why not?
 
 “Sailed” the boat round the island over the past few days. With favourable wind it could have taken 26 hours – but that wasn’t to be. So we got it around the Cape of Nobodies Interested and berthed in a small town about half way – a town that was probably thriving not so many generations ago with rum hardened fishermen and their guilt free women but had since become a second home retreat for the Copenhagen moneyed. As far as I could tell, the only viable job left in the town, outside of the basics and the tourist needs, would be the roof thatcher –  “yes, I know we may have slate in the city, but have you seen number 23? I want rustic!” Maybe the teenage pregnancy counsellor gets a run for their money in the summer months too – maybe, this being Denmark.
 
 So what was to be my introduction to “sailing” turned into an introduction to “motor boating”. The 40 year old engine, the original, had to chug it’s way through varying rough seas (as rough as they get here) – and like it’s one third owner of about the same age – it didn’t take kindly to being dragged out of it’s comfort zone. If we had have gone down, there was no need for flares or horns – just follow the Hansel and Gretel oil trail. Oh, and the hole we discovered just above the water line about 3 hours out of port – rocky seas will reveal such inadequacies – that was fixed with a “maybe we should have this just in case” tube of industrial polyfilla – just in case!
 
 But talking of fish – I caught one. A hornfish – like an eel but with a long protruding mouth – I presume for digging in the sand. Poor bugger – caught by a three man crew all eager to prove  themselves to the high seas and each other. I clubbed it to death, it’s black eyes never once showing shock at each whack – maybe why it’s easier to kill a fish rather than a land lumbering creature – funny though, it tasted like chicken.
 
 Had a reread of your last mail – and yes, Composition Composition Composition! I’m guessing it’s something that’s innate in most viewers of art – appreciation of, I mean – but manipulating it ain’t. I’ll let you know how I’m getting on as I get on.
 
 Keep writing – and stay away from those police – I hear covid19 ain’t the only thing they carry.
 
 
Jun 24, 2020 TW wrote:

Your maiden voyage reminds me of something you might want to read: John Steinbeck’s (fairly short) serio-comic The Log from the Sea of Cortez. It’s not really a log, but you can burn it if you wish. I think you’d like it though.

You’re exactly right re composition…”I’m guessing it’s something that’s innate in most viewers of art – appreciation of, I mean”. Hence thinkers since the Greeks have voiced opinions/discoveries of what is ‘innately pleasing’…golden points, proportions, etc. as what is ‘good’, ultimately meaning what is elevating in man, thus tying aesthetics to ethics. Back to composition, you’ll see what I mean by looking at all art, everything from antiquities, through Byzantine art (mainly triangles and rectangles) to the X of perspective-based designs at the beginning of the Renaissance, through all classical and neo-classical work, Impressionism and even (occasionally) in Abstract Expressionism  -or ‘Action Painting’, which is more what you appear to be doing. Generally, due to the intersecting roads, loops, whatever of the compositional elements, the eye goes on a journey but is never allowed to leave the frame, so making the journey a complete experience, like a book -unless you specifically want it to whiz right out, which is also something you might use. I was wondering if you were using house paint or tubed acrylics for your paintings. House and industrial paints can be much better for what you’re doing, and they have solid credentials, too (viz Jackson Pollock et al). I knew one abstract artist in Seattle who got amazing results using commercial airplane paint. As to application, I have something like $10,000 worth of brushes (in Italy), but I’ve found that sometimes a little kiddies’ brush is better for this or that. Use whatever suits your needs for whichever stage of the buildup -soft brushes, rollers, old ruined brushes, mortar trowels, a spare human head…whatever’s the right tool for the right job so you can construct that balance of whimsy and potency you seem to go for.