Friday, August 27, 2010


This is just a simple shot of a wall in Manhattan on the lower east side displaying an ad for a piano shop within. There's really no subject to it, but I love the color of it, and the balance. I find it really interesting that the eye kind of makes the stucco wall look green besides the purple of the painted sign. It's really not green, you just perceive it that way. And I think the balance is impeccable. It's a bit dark in the lower left hand corner, but then there's a burst of sunshine in the mid-to-upper right. And the black fence draws you back down to the lower left, but the black and grey graffiti pulls you back. Add in the rusty red-brown of the beam at the upper canter and it just focuses everything along with the one shiny piece of 'silver' fence capping at the lower left center.

This is what I try to do in my abstract paintings. I try to have different points of focus, but also lines (the wires and breaks in the stucco) that separate things and move the eye around. I flip the canvas end to end trying to find a perfect balance no matter how it might be hung - and this photo, I think, achieves that.

Artist Unknown, Brooklyn, 2010

Monday, August 23, 2010

Sunday, August 1, 2010