Channel Changer.

"The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is."

-Arnold Bennett

Ghost on a Screen.
Acrylic on masonite 19x22"

  About a week ago, the piece I was working on stopped going my way. My brushes just weren't cooperating, no matter how strict I was with them, so I banished the painting to the dark side of my studio and walked home anxious and frustrated. 

  The best remedy, I knew, was to start a new piece and return to the disobedient one later. So early the next day I went hunting in the antique market near chiesa di Sant Ambrogio for some old photos to paint from. But Instead of finding motivation, all I found was a feeling of shame. Looking through the personal moments of someone I had never met, with the intention to make them my own, felt surprisingly perverse. I honestly thought I would find inspiration at the expense of the aesthetic oddities people in the past seem to hold for us, but the thought of painting a stranger's wedding portrait seemed like really bad karma. Still, I didn't want to leave empty handed and consider the trip a failure, so I purchased four small, black and white portraits to study respectfully.

  Now, I don't want to claim that one of them is haunted, but it totally is (although maybe in a good way). After scanning the four photos onto my computer, I threw one on a flash drive and took it to the print shop around the corner to get it blown up to paint from (I hope the lady there has gathered by now that I might be a painter in view of the absurd things I have her print for me on a regular basis). My intention was simply to paint this centred portrait of a young man as it was, maybe with a bit of colour, as a break for my mind from the piece I was working on before. Only, something beyond my control hated that idea and took my successfully copied image and split it in three, offering an adequate alternative to the redundancy in a painting of a centred face. Two things had me accept this eerie change: 

1. I was out of money.

2. It seemed like something knew what it was doing.

  So I painted it as it was, in spite of its hauntedness and the apparent discomfort of my studio mate. Something had reminded me that these "accidents" are important in making art that feels honest; art that isn't over thought. Art that is plainly a reaction to the illogical shit that happens in a lifetime.