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Does This Society Make My Ass Look Fat?

8w461 Naked Girl 24 x 18 inches acrylic on paper

I refuse Hollywood, TV, magazines, newspapers, radio and as much advertising as I can manage to avoid, in all its forms. New York City often reminds me of the opening scenes of Blade Runner (a movie I did see, and really liked).

On the other hand, I remember the peace I felt in Tulum, almost completely devoid of the clamor of the propaganda machine as it attempts to willfully erode one's self-esteem, offering up external solutions to lighten your wallet but never your load.

If you don't know this book, you may find it interesting: When Society Becomes an Addict by Anne Wilson Schaef

It's wonderful to learn, as our moment alive continues, that life never gets less delicious, less sensual or erotic. Aging is a powerful, giving process. And death is sacred.

SEX PAINTING: masturbating girl with steel dildo

Masturbating Girl 9w*** 30 x 22 inches acrylic and charcoal on rives bfk
PLEASE NOTE: this is a preliminary IPHONE photo, filtered and sharpened and whatnot in photoshop, but STILL, ya know ! I will repost this after it is shot with the great lens and camera body. It will look better then.

Now this painting was a lighthearted undertaking. I mean I can only immerse my heart and soul in re-experiencing the death of Suzanne from that grinding, pernicious cancer for just so long before turning my heart and soul to the erotic and delicious vision of a beautiful girl masturbating with the justly famous nJoy Eleven (a steel dildo that is a thing of sculptural beauty in itself)!

DEATH PAINTING

Suzanne Dying 9wxx1 30 x 22 inches acrylic and charcoal on rives bfk

PLEASE NOTE: this is a preliminary IPHONE photo, filtered and sharpened and whatnot in photoshop, but STILL, ya know ! I will repost this after it is shot with the great lens and camera body. It will look better then.

The reference for this painting is also from December 20th, 2009, eleven days before Suzanne's death from metastatic hemangiopericytoma. I have come to call them death paintings, but I often think of them as KADDISH which is the Hebrew prayer for the dead.

For one thing I know: that nine-year journey from the diagnosis of the first brain tumor to her final surrender was a holy path I was blessed to be allowed to share, and at the moment of death God shook the universe and I howled.

DEATH PAINTING: preparatory study

SUZANNE DYING 9d*** graphite on paper 18 x 16 1/2 inches (irregular)

So, in honor of my commitment to make this blog more of a view into my studio practice and personal process–foolish to try to separate in an artist, I believe–I am uploading a study, the second one for what may be my next DEATH PAINTING. The inspiration and reference for this image was probably shot on December 20th, 2008, eleven days before her death from metastatic hemangiopericytoma.

I've been asked why I'm making these paintings. Every time I work on one I must pay a huge emotional toll. Nor do I expect there to be a clamoring to decorate the living room with this work. I have to make them. It's certainly a memorial; it is also part of my process of integrating and releasing this horrific and seemingly premature death. Suzanne was 51.