The Studio.

This is my studio. This is where I have painted for the last 8 years. It's not big but it has good light and a wonderful feeling of being, at least in my mind, in a 17th century Paris apartment. It's here that my imagination takes root and takes me on far away journeys. It's in the studio where I can have conversations with myself and with those long gone but essential to the alchemy of creating. It has great windows with jasmine growing outside and when the scent of jasmine combines with my favorite smell of oil paint, it just adds to the intoxicating conversation. And to add to the mix there is a large library where I keep all of my well worn art books and biographies. When I need a slap of direction I go to the library with some if not all of the answers waiting there for me.

I have had a great many studios. Some more glamourous than others. I have worked in my parents studios, school studios, my living room, garage, basement, my bedroom, a loft above a glorious 1920's Art Deco movie theater in Hollywood but none have been as joyous as the studio I work in now. It's in my home and that makes it so easy. I get a flash and I go paint. No matter what time of the day or night. The clock does not exist, only my ideas and my energy map the day. My dog Charley, a very large and distinguished blue-black standard Poodle, loves to sleep near me as I paint. Sometimes I don't see him move and I trip over him as I move around the canvas. He just looks up at me with a look that says "Your forgiven, now go about your business without being so clumsy!"  There is also Tina, my little dog that only likes to go into my studio to give her opinion of my work with a well placed poop. Usually in front of the painting I'm working on. Lucky for me (and her) I'm Italian and we consider it really good luck when there is poop on or near us in times of importance. So as you can see, this is really my very sacred place. It is my touchstone. It is my talisman. In truth, the thought was that as long as I did not have to share a studio it was bliss. Unless my studio mates are my dogs...they are part of the bliss now.

My Studio taken with a Lumix LX 5

Cosmos Mariner, 60 X 48, oil on canvas

This is the painting that was on the easel in the photo above. I finally finished it, after many different incarnations and many months, this is what the painting wanted me to do. I should have just listened to it from the start.

The Art of a Good Joke.

Sometimes, and some might say most times, art historians get things very wrong. This I would say is one of those occassions. The news yesterday and today was full of headlines proclaiming that the Mona Lisa has a long lost twin. This "Twin Mona" has been in the Prado since 1819 and before that in the hands of the Spanish royal family from 1666 (a full 160 years or so AFTER the Leonardo's Mona Lisa). The claim is not that Leonardo himself painted it but that one of his students did... side by side with Leonardo himself. Uh....Why?... because the black overpainting of the background was removed and that uncovered a landscape! Hey! Leonardo's Mona has a landscape!!! Ok, Leonardo's landscape is exquisite and this one not so much. But let's not stop there. And because the painting is on a Walnut panel! Hey! Leonardo's Mona is on a Poplar Panel!.. but wood is wood, right??? Nevermind that wood panels were used by countless other painters from that period until now. 
Here is my biggest problem with the "Twin" Mona Lisa. She's butt ugly. Yep. There. I said it. No way would Leonardo let a student make a copy of a portrait that he carried with him all over Europe for years, that was that ugly. Nope. Never. This Mona is not a twin but a mere copy made *after* Leonardo. So far and so after Leonardo, that there was no danger of this person getting a kick in the ass from Leonardo's well placed foot. That's my belief and I'm sticking with it. 
What's that, Leonardo sir? Oh, You're most welcomed.

The real Mona Lisa on the left and the ugly "Twin" on the right.