Friday, January 31, 2020

What did Jack do?






David Lynch, Los Angeles CA, 20Enero20








As I feel, rightly or wrongly, a lot of personal connection to this work through its use of particular motifs that I’ve also used in my work and elements of the history of the character, Jack, coincidental to my own, one may expect ridiculous and undue prejudice  from me against this work.  Such is not the case.  David Lynch plays a detective interrogating a suspect in a side room of a train station. Clearly the character of Jack, embodied by a Capuchin Monkey (similar or identical to the one who utters Judy near the close of the film Fire walk with me) and given voice (and mouth) by Lynch, is primarily an alter ego, a projection of his own self fears, as well as a loving tribute to his long time friends Jack Fisk and Jack Nance.  It should also be remembered that Jack Nance died under mysterious circumstances and one would expect such a traumatic mystery to find its way into Lynch's work.  The style of the film harkens back to Eraserhead, though the dialogue with its elaborate animal metaphors and proverbs seems to parody hardboiled detective scripts, and specifically Philip (possibly with the help of his twin brother Julius) Epstein’s racehorse dialogue in Hawks’ the Big Sleep
















Monday, January 6, 2020

JOHN BALDESSARI, RIP.





John Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) RIP. Wrong, the Spectator & this is Bad (1967)

Sunday, January 5, 2020

Derron & Luna at Eureka Valley Rec



I wasn't at all happy with the watercolor drawings I made yesterday from the two very beautiful models at the Eureka Valley Rec Life Drawing Session, but when I got home I finished the last one from memory while it was still fresh. Thanks to the two models, Derron Thweatt & Luna Melah, and to Thomasina DeMaio for arranging these sessions.