It was a nice cold night, windows open, tons of quilts. I should have slept for at least another three hours, (bed at a reasonable hour, pedalled around a fair amount, BikeHop night usually means sleepy smiling, then tons o snooze and droolin'. (Wondering how Dani and her fella did over at SLO's pots and pans night, (their Bike Hop is a bit different, and sounds quite the entertain...)

I know I talk in my sleep.
I've been told this over the years. This must be what wakes up the cats, (because the one who always comes over and starts talking to me when I'm on the phone, which means shes, um, I guess voice activated or something,) comes over, starts meowing at yours truly (totally off in lah-lah land, making schluffies dreaming of god knows what, start saying who knows, what,)
---SHE starts doing that weird 'bread kneading thing,' (on my head,) and with the hollering, results in my suddenly being awake...

Well, that and the damn paperboy throwing down copies of La Vida Loca, or La Vida Valley, or La Vida Herring or whatever the thing is called, on my doormat, at like, half past stupid in the morning, (I swear, he does accoustics studies, to see how good a whunk can be registered by scientists off in the Sequoias,)

So
the time comes where you say.... looks like it's not much sleep from here...
Oh well, 5 hours is better than none.
(They say that you need less when you get older...
I've not found that, though, having once known a woman who claimed to need 13 hours of sleep a day, to be a bit excessive.)

Bike Hop.
Good.

Not a whole lot of stops, but they were worthwhile, quite the sized crowd, lotsa fun folks, overall, another great job being schlepped around the various spots by our fearless leader, Ben.
(Ben, dontcha know, is going full tilt at ReCycle, (not just the evening hours,) the man is boldly going where some of us have dove in, feat and head first all at once,
-and Starting monday will be conducting ReCycle full time,,,
(yes, normal hours, at least eight to ten per day... this is to be his bidness all on his lonesome, no other day gig, He's now a full on bidness man... (welcome to the self-perpetuated rat race, you crazy bastard,,, you not no more workin' fo da man, you workin' fo YOU... niiiiice.)

Okay, where was I.

Ah.
BikeHop and Art.
(Gorgeous Night by the way, nice full moon too.)

Really memorable to me, (aside from the 3.85 spent at Teazers for a bottle of peach-ginger iced tea, (I will never do THAT again... jeesh,)

1. -was the work down on the corner of Mono and VanNess(looking in from the outside, seeing all the black branches hung from the ceiling, quite like a pine forest from home, but only, a pine forest made of black painted tubes and wire, and swarming with Fresnites, (Fresnans?) Fresners...
and BikeHoppers milling around looking at da Art.
(the Native American themed piece on the center wall, (VanNess Street Side,) was also pretty cool, staring at this from the sidwalk, through the frame of the glass, through the branch things, and onto the panel gave one a really cool sense of wandering up to an abandoned old house in the woods upstate, (Pa. or NY, not California, -though I'm sure they exist out here too,) -and, combined with the crisp air, full moon, and soft crackle of pineneedles beneath my feet,
-as well as the distant sound of chainsaws and drunken white guys wearing safety orange toting rifles, made me quite homesick. (Okay, I made the part about the pine-needles up, but you get the drift.)

We pedalled back up VanNess to what honestly has been a trusty stand-by for every BikeHop I've done, (of course, this is Broadway Studios.)

You know that you have been living someowhere for a little while when you begin to have memories about locations and people you've walked through them with.
-The beautiful girl in the formal evening gown and her family giving away kittens,
-the occasional Roller Derby Grrl. (one in particular,) who I always see at Broadway, a lovely smile herself,
-the evening that a few of us guys were just standing there, talking about whatever, and Jarah walked by and chatted us up, wearing that tangerine dress, reminding us no matter how bad your day has been or how mundane your existance, stunning is stunning, and it is still quite a nice surprise to find onesself simultaniously tongue tied, and babbling (worse than usual,) having been captivated.
-The first time I saw a painting by Brianna Johnson-Smeds.

Broadway is cool.

All of this comes at you as you wheel your bike to a dark corner, say hello to a few folks, and go into a mode where you just look at work, and sometimes speak of it.

Broadway Stop One:
-I'll be darned if I can remember his name, but I think he's also a fellow BikeHopper.
Photographer.
Maybe 10 10x12 shots mounted on a red board in a shared studio off in a corner right up off of the back entrance.

Three really hit me.
One, capturing the moment of dusk, where the sky is a torch of peach and robins egg blue, the buildings below have a single lit room, the window glowing in a near black silhouette, and powerlines, transformers, and telephone poles tying it together. Incredible composition. Excellent study in vibrancy, managing to capture two specific times of day, night on the ground, gorgeous blue sky above, and the sense of nesting with that softly lit window... Also transcending the (sometimes, less than attractive,) back alley as a viewpoint,and letting the wires and lines bring the eye around to play with the clouds.
-Second shot, from within a car, back seat, again, more of a silhouette, but captureing the movement (we're in a car going somewhere,) but the intimacey of sitting in the back seat, with a conversation going between two in the front. This is not a feeling of alientation and separateness, this is an inclusion and safety afforded when being a quiet person in the presence of others, -and they want you there.
Very comforting imagery and environment caught by this guy.
-Final shot, a transofrmer of some sort, or maybe a cel tower relay, slightly blurry up in the sky. Is this thing an angel? a strange tree? is it going to hurt you? is it looking? is it static and benign? It's not edgy, and yet, combines the photographers sense of instilling calm and soothing, with a sense of '...if this is okay, and if I have no reason to be afraid of this thing, WHY am I? And WHY is he tryin to calm these fears, if there are no fears to be had??? (transmission equipment has never been given such personality.)
--Next time I'll get his name... I thanked him for the photos... he's good. (We have good photographers here, this guy was posting for the first time, I want to see more.)

Next stop, (2) Brianna.
Nope, she wasn't there, but her work was.
(I've met the woman once, am completely thrown by it, ... need to see it every time the place is open.)
The space that used to be filled with her paintings still has many of them, (It's nice to go back and see them, sort of like my fav's that I used to go and sketch and sit in front of at the Phila. Museum of Art, (particularly H.O. Tanner, and Eakins,) --and I'm yet again reminded what good painting is all about.
I was just thinking of it, (this morning, as one of the cats was poking me in the nose, thinking that I wanted to play, (what part of lying semi-concious buried by pillows gives this impression, I ask you?)

Brianna works with light.
Everything is light and shadows.
I keep thinking that her work reminds me of Hopper's (only she's kind and sweet to her models, Hopper could make a Reubens lover, mid-embrace, look gaunt, drawn, and suicidal, (with a cigarette hanging from her gob.)

Brianna captures the whole scene as if we're all made of light.
Even the darks are just darker and more richer forms of light. Her night scenes are all as if seen through a rainey windshield, but it's warm enough that you don't mind getting wet. Everything is fireflies and these lumiscent creatures that are captured by the artist,(even if they are looking away, with looks of bewilderment, or a smirk,) These people are all jewels and beautifully polished embers, ambers, and deep woods, -and though you know the structures are there, they are not heavy, not clunky, they are walking spirit, capturing the vision of dragonfly's wings and the glow of secrets yet to be exchanged.
There is no such thing as an ugly person painted by Brianna.
There are no such things as ugly people, period, --and she testifies to this, managing to capture each personality and the animated spirit of each subject, as it darts about within their bodies and clothing, and stares at us, like imps saying, '...okay, c'mon, take the picture, we'll sit still here just this once, you'll capture our souls, but for you, this is okay.'

Stop Three:
A new Guy. Simon.
You know something is up when the highschool kids running around are telling each other, '...you are not going in there.' and drag each other in and out of the presentation space, giggling.
-Good lord, it's only a still life done with a dildo, a butt plug, and a jar of (apricot? peach?) jam, (it may have been two butt plugs, I'm not sure...) -I'm sure most of the households in Fresno have these items, and they're being employed at the breakfast table right now, while we speak, (what's the fuss?)
And yes, there were other studies depicting various sexual postions, acts, and the odd trussed up young woman in the usual B&D poses...
(Personally, I'm not into that stuff, (sex toys, B&D, S&M, C&W, not even Sonny and Cher,
...well, I like jam on my toast, (which is making me hungry, to be honest,) To each their own.

---But this guy (also,) is a figure painter.
He's a good one.

-What defines a good figure painter?
-it comes to the devine alchemy of mass, weight, presence, structure and reality.
You can take a figure, and present them as bodies, and they'll be graceful, beautiful, and well represented, but they need to be actually believeable to work as figure studies.
Anyone who understands lifedrawing and perspective knows about forshortening, length, width and dimension, (something that has been lost in a lot of work recently,) but this painter completely knows what's happening beneath the skin, beneath the muscle, into the bone, and then has captured the tension, movement, and live aspects of his figures.

They weigh something, too, (this is not taught nor learned, you simply know how to let your figures weigh down, or not, it's a trust issue.
-If a painter is going to be any good, there is an ability, (almost like a good social worker,) to have a model, with their physical personality, come through. (Again, like a social worker,) the point of the experience of creating is to remove onesself (the artist,) from the work, and allow the subject to fully come on, fully present, and come to life, ---with the artist not there anymore at all, (a good social worker, works with the situation and people, helps it to untangle, get back on track, and then steps away, leaving things with no trace of their having done any work, ---it's the subjects themselves who are focal points and always should be.)

--Most people who paint, --in fact, most modern artists, are so full of themselves that, even when looking at otherwise commanding subjects and circumstances, you never really get to see them, because the artist either doesn't know how, or refuses to step back and let the subjects really be themselves in all their glory.
(It's a security issue, it's a maturity thing, in order to create and really give birth to a work, you have to trust it and let it leave and come back and exist apart from yourself, otherwise, it is nothing more than an appendage, ---not a real entity.
Simons work is all about this.

His bone structure is there because that's what the model HAS,
His muscle structure is there because that's what the model HAS,
the body fat, the skin, the hair, the tension, the shadows, all are honest and true to the body presented, and he's not afraid to put this down and let us see what the form is.
I find it interesting that his style is more remiscent of studies more from the late fifties to early sixties, where the fleshtones were cooler, the actions could be seen almost more as gymnastic than provocative, and capturing a figure meant an honesty that has been almost lost to the technique (or even less, 'the hype,') of modern painters.
He even presents the parts of the nude that are naturally more modest and hidden, as modest and hidden,(bravo!, a guy who understands the difference between nude and porn-sleaze, I am sure his models appreciate this too...)

Not to besmirch modern artists, but all to often they present a series of details and colors in terms of clothing, buttons, reflections, (etc,) and some sort of 'nuance-ambiance-nostalgia-dreck'
---but if you were to undrape the model, then further undrape the body, (down to skeletal structure and muscle build,) the poor things would look like they'd been a bus accident.
---Because so few schools and artists bother to actually study and really draw what is there (much less really take the time to work with the varying structure of the human in different genders, ages, and locale, --the final work has no strength, has no mass, weighs nothing, is flat, and is not believable.
Simon is truly painting not just a form, but is painting nudes, he's painting figures and bodies as they exist.
There is someone there, there is a visceral and naked thing, that happens to be a person, is quite feminine, very aggressive and genuine, and simply has to be dealt with visually. This is what naked people look like, and (quite frankly,) this is why painting the nude is more real than photographing one, -and why it always will be.
He commented that the two studies that really grabbed me were real people painted from life, (he knew the models,)
The other works, (such as the inverted B&D suspension? -as well as other studies were taken from varying media, (not live.)
-This shows. He knows how to capture life as it is, which is also showing through the staged work as well, (He's not able to switch off working from reality, so a study based upon photos reveals the source...

-Is is more difficult? Did this guy have to study? Hell yes.
And, to be candid, this is why his work is not just good and worth checking out, but it's correct and will hold up among other real painters.

-Even his still life studies, (okay,,, the butt plugs, etc,) though not my idea of a good time, -show excellent understanding of surface, density, even the difference of the play of light and glow within the items depicted, and allow each an accurate and representation of what they are made of (and if you think it's easy to convey 'hard plastic, semi-soft plastic, and jelly in a glass jar using paint on a surface? try it...)
This is not exactly a still life with pears in a bowl on a dutch table somewhere, (by a long shot,) but the artists ability to, (again,) know his craft in presenting the subject as it is, (not as he thinks it is, -this is all the difference in the world between an okay painter, and a real one.)

Stop 4: Wandering down a back back hallway,(which is actually a front one,) was a work of Nigel's
leaning against a wall, softly lit overhead.

I don't know if it was supposed to just be leaning there, of if it was supposed to be mounted, (I found the name tag for it, face down on the top edge, and set it up, properly so that someone who didn't know who this was done by could tell.
Though I am not a big fan of the '...if you know anything about anything, you know who this person is,' school of hip and snobbery, I will use this phrase about Nigels work.

It's funny, I mentioned an artist to Nigel in conversation one day, and in two words he said 'Brianna,' ---and he knew who she was just by a few details.
I mention a couple of things to other painters, and they just say 'Nigel.'
We have a mutual friend, (Ben,) who, before I ever saw Nigels work was saying, 'oh yeah, and if you are down there, stop in and see my friend Nigel's work, it's really great,'
---sort of in the offhand way that you'd mention to someone from out of town, '...yeah, and if you're in Italy, the Vatican vatican thing, totally worth the extra buck on the bus, --or
'Eiffel Tower, you know, it's kind of a must see, tell the Elevator operator, Bertran, that I sent you, he'll take you to the top and give you a nice cup of coffee, and tell him I hope Claire is feeling better with her allergies...'
(um,, right Ben, got it...)
-Stuff like that.

Nigel is frankly too good to be this young.
The theme of this post is about weight and gravity.
Nigels stuff weighs tons.
When I asked him who his influences were, he came up with two heavies of mine, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.
When I was his age, I had only started studying Caravaggio. (I was raised on Rembrandt, actually, so the Guild painters were a comfortable lot to hang with.)
-But Caravaggio, the murderer, the lover, the passion behind the act... He was new.
Caravaggio may as well be Nigel, and verse visa, (doubt he's the homicidal type, but you never know, it's the quiet friendly ones you have to keep an eye on...)
To look at the Dutch School, (Rembrandt being one of the chiefs,) you see tremendous drama, light and shadow, as well as unflinching presentation of human life and character in all of their ugly beauty.
-I was quite honestly, grateful to start to meet REAL Dutch people when I was younger, because they were actually quite attractive, (whereas Rembrandt, for some reason, made is on Momma look kind of, well, haggish... (sweet, an no less loved, but still,,, yeesh, Rem, do we have to be that honest? 'Talk about Warts and All'.)
Yes, we need this honesty.
And I will always yell the virtues of Rembrandt, as I will always do same for VanGogh, Franz Halls, Albrect Durer, Vermeer, --as well as those who are totally different in their presentation and style, (Singer-Sargeant, Picasso, Monet, Goya, or Klee.)
-These are painters who (lets really mix it up, Rauschenberg and Pollack, throw them in too..)
are unique in their voice, push the envelope with each move, and, no matter how hard they try, fully present their subjects as if they were gods and monsters, ---and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's them doing it as only they can. (...okay, okay, Rauschenberg with the ram is stretching it, --but it's at least to say his name... besides I've always felt the tire was a nice touch, reminds me of swimming for some reason.) -My apologies to their misspelled names, but I don't think they'll be too upset, (they're all dead.)

Caravaggio, however, is all about about the passion and life exchange, no matter how dark.
No matter what Nigel touches, it turns to several things every time.
Fully realized studies of the subject presenting emotion and depth that even they don't know that they have, God only knows what emotion and haunted spectre that is translating through Nigels painting hand, -and some of the creepiest most unsettling stuff you ever want to see.
-He's a gentleman, his studies of women are accurate, and somewhat forboding, (but at least the girls maintain their beauty.)
Men, on the other hand? Forget it.
If you are a guy in Nigels vision, you are run through with torrents of latent terror and unsettled scores.

-First I'll explain a few things.
Nigel is a sort of fellow hero, It turns out we were both trained not to use black and white in our work, (I was, infact, not allowed to use greens or Oranges either, it's a bear, but it gives you more command of your palate, ---and causes you to have better control of your depth and volume, as you are tweaking the components of the color themselves...

He's also got a natural Flemish style, (Flemish painters underpaint, we also work in transparent and transluscent layers, (again, the depth thing.)
We let the surface of the gesso, or the color laid down beneath, -come through.
-This allows (particularlly fleshtones,) to glow, and you can present any vesper or terror that is on the subjects mind, to convey simply by working your washes correctly... Nigel knows this, (I'm not giving away any secrets here, just explaining.) This is where true technical depth comes in. This is what happens when you study. People are actually transluscent.
PS -Simon? he studied with Nigel in a class or two as well, (seems like there are some good proffs. down at City.... hmmmm.)

-Nigel uses this to murmer the backstory.
Look at the portrait of the man in the folding chair (the painting I was looking at on the hallway.)
-You will see a red glow coming in from the subject's right.
-What is that?
Where is it coming from?
Why is it there?
-Red glows are not good things. --not when surrounded by electrical equipment.
-Further, is that glow on his skin, or coming through it? (I know, I know, too much detail, ---but actually, no, perfect amounts of detail.)

-You will also see, (another study in an artist who knows what he's doing,) that the shadows cast by the light are worked into harsh, as well as subtle tones, ---not just as reality would have them, ---but as the subject is to be seen, (there are parts of the form that are only suggested, you see something beneath the chair, your mind says, 'he's barefoot,' --yet all it is a brownish shape... -why?
The artist wants you to focus elsewhere. The skin tones, the muscle sag, the temperature of the subject, all plays within these glazes laid down through time.
(he also uses little ridges of light on the metal edges here and there, and then uses some of the similar shades of the enamelled and galvanized metal from the meters and machinery behind and along side the subject on each other's surfaces... This is imposed and not what actually happened, but builds both the eerie aspect, -and the drama between the model and their surroundings. (This is deliberate, this is statement.)

-You cannot look at Nigels work without wanting to know what is going on, but it will upset you, because you know the story, and it's more than likely in your own family.
With Brianna's you want to know what the interplay is between the subjects, --you know that they have lives, and you are interested, the story is bouyant and emotional, it's very expressive.
Nigel's stories defy words, they are about feeling, and they don't stick to you, they resonate and penetrate.

-Looking at Nigels, you know not only that that they have lives, but that they are tortured, are tired, that there is pain, or the emptiness after of which, and sometimes you don't know if you are looking into a setting that is a real person, or the hull of all of the agony that they have ever felt.
-Maybe there is a happy version of this individual somewhere, maybe this is the Dorian Grey image, ---or maybe this is the real one.

Nigel also has done something few painters really can pull off.
He's taken a classic form, (Caravaggios mediterranian passion, nuance, settings and environments. melded it with the darkness of rembrandt, (the painter who pissed off half of the Drapers Guild (the DutchMaster Cigar portrait,) -because they were half in darkness and only partially represented,,,,) and brought them up to the power and utility age of the 40's and 50's.

--These are people who embraced a technology before it was technology.
This is the early radioactive experiments, where crude instruments, containers, and dials showed only one distant band of activity, (and neglected to convey the silent microwave that altered cell structure forever.
-the X-ray turning hand pigment of the technician, wearing only a heavy canvas vest to white,
-and the chemical change by magnetics, resulting in sickness that can be only documented and diagnosed, -and not cured.

Nigels demons are electronic, you can smell the ozone, the diesel, and the scent of pinesol, sometimes intermingled with stale urine, and expensive cologne.
His subjects are normal, paunchy, tired middle to elderly aged men, who are now showing what it's like to become part of the machine that they've given their lives to.
-I'm not aware of anyone working with this genre to this degree.
(Oh yeah, you have your Boris and your Frazetta, your lame Renaissance Medieval stuff, -that is so played out it's not even funny,)

--This is quite different. This is the early-modern-energy-industrial forty years later.
-Down the road, THIS will be seen as the Medieval, and the dungeon masters will not be sadistic musclebound teutons in tights, (scarey to just say it,)
-but occupations with electric companies, or municipalities, where the endless exposure to chemicals, vibrations, invisible readings, and green porcelined steel has caused a psychosis and stench that no mortician will be able to hide.
The subjects chained to the walls here are wearing twills, and the dungeonmasters are behind a desk somewhere.
(Think this doesn't exist? Right down the road back in my town in NY State is a company that makes huge submarine batteries... the workers all walk around in the acrid air, and their faces, after years of exposure have huge pores and actually look like they're slowly dissolving,,, the hack of them from the endless GPC cigarrettes is startling... '..hey, the benefits are good, I was told by someone one time, (the life expectancy isn't so hot, but hey, the benefits, (it's not in the cure, folks, it's in the medecine, remember that...)

His stuff creeps me out, but I love it.
-As a painter, what I see, (not unlike Simon, with his porn-shop still life items,) is not the parts of this image, ---but the whole of it.

-There is, (again,) serious understanding of skeletal structure, muscle mass, -and then even further, the anxiety, age, fatigue, and emotional state of each subject.
Nigel's stuff is brilliant in that it completely protrays not just the figure (with profound accuracy,) but understands that this life is holistic, (and not in some chomping granola and lets all go and meditate in the sunset sort of way.) Whether there was ever to be a happy-wholesome-and refreshed self that has a balanced mind, body, and diet, Nigel gets it, and gets that after a while we are what environments we remain in for the greatest periods of time.
-The obvious portrait would be of a physical plant operator, who started out in life merely as a 'janitor.' ---Who's slowly become a human smudge and the angry jagged edge that he's cut himself on (at first accidently, then deliberately,) for decades while repeating the paperwork for cleaning supplies and Fuel Oil.

-The not so obvious?
-would be the suit and tie types, -who are so used to power plays and boardrooom sweat, that they go off and join fight clubs, and occasionally head downstairs to have a belt of singlemalt with 'ol Charlie,' in the boilerroom, just to shake hands with real work.
-This is the dark and glowing world, where, for hours at a time, people become subterranian, have pin-ups in steel lockers, and look up the stormgrates and ladies skirts at first, and then don't even care anymore.

Nine Inch Nails, and Tool come close to this, but there is too much 'local,'(be it locale, as in: 'Fresno' or 'local 183,') for them to fully comprehend and depict it.

How Nigel knows all of this, at what, 25, maybe 23?
Not my business.
What I know is that his stuff is not merely breathing, and it will bring you back, out of the sunlight and warm scented breezes, -back to that dark cellar every time,
-what brings the viewer back time and time again?
I don't know, and I don't want to know, either.
It will be interesting, as time unfolds to see what he paints, and where, (hopefully, many-many years,) of painting lead him.
The man's work is brilliant.

With that final depiction of these excellent artists that I, (again,) bumped into while bicycling around in the pursuit of 'art,' I leave you.

I am grateful, (as always,) to the artists who have had the insight and courge to present their work.

I wish them many wealthy buyers, and even more, a sense of fulfillment as they use their gifts to proclaim life here in the valley.

I'd be lying if I were to say that when I look at the work, and meet the people I start to pray for them, (I'm viewed by some as a religious man, I just consider myself in love with my Creator,)
-either way, as I look at all of these works, and my fellow artists who capture the insights and experiences with such tremendous ability, I am humbled to find them, their presentations, and am grateful also to the One who's created not just what they are seeing, and expressing, but them as well.

There are good artists out there, not just people busy 'being part of a scene,' but people who study hard, are serious about their craft, and warrant far more respect and praise than they will receive.
I thank them, formally, at this time, for their efforts.

I thank you for yours in reading of them as well.

Be well.