Weds 11th

 Douglas Witmer just joined Bridgette Mayer.  I am in awe of his cv and his statement.  And his work?? hmmm maybe, guess I have to see it in person 

"The subject of my work is presence. My goal with each painting is to establish a unique visual place offering an open invitation into a contemplative experience of seeing and feeling.

Nothing about my work is prescriptive. I have always approached my work as inquiry into the materiality of what paintings (painted objects) are, how their reality can feel, and where these feelings lead as a broader relationship.

Recent paintings are achieved through refined processes within the framework of reductive abstraction. I activate elemental compositional structures with sensuous color and various improvised gestural and incidental actions. Making a painting is an accrual relationship for me. From start to finish on a painting, my interactions with the surface are additive. I apply the paint in watercolor-thin layers. Sometimes a wash is cascaded down the entire face of the painting. Other times I introduce structure with flat housepainters’ brushes. And still other times I improvise gestural strokes or perform actions where resulting marks will be unexpected or unanticipated, such as purposely touching wet paintings against one another. The highly fluid nature of my process sets up challenging dynamics of control and release. I hope to coax a wide range of emotional results from these basic approaches."

just blown away by the simple clarity and assurance of this--I asked Rupert if he knew the phrase geometric abstraction 

Hanover today for brain scan.  They did it with Willow sitting in her wheelchair.  In the waiting room I saw John Allen enter and be sent on into the scanning area, then rolled on Heidi pushed by her youngest daughter, Jackie.  Now retired from being a CPA among other things.  

Talked with three students from Mumbai.  Urged them to read and see Shantaram, told them about our visits to Mumbai.  One of them has pulmonary infection and I thought of the air in New Delhi at this time of the year.  

Great lunch at Tuckerbox.  Jamie remembered me.  He now wears glasses.  His band is cutting an ev.  Such a nice guy.  Lunch was terrific but the baklava was a frozen trio flown in from Turkey not the homemade genuine from their kitchen.

Terrible news from Abq.  Email from Barbara.  Lu's son Nathan died last night from a seizure while Lu is out in Wenatchee visiting her new great granddaughter and the son there who is the undertaker.  Biron, his

name, something like that.