Irish Fiddler

This is the hand of Junior Crehan, an Irish farmer and a wonderful fiddler, known as the father of County Clare traditional music. I photographed him many moons ago while travelling through the West of Ireland.

Starting the Year

I painted with Jacques Valin last week near Steve Shriver's place. Various people stopped by and looked at the works in progress. A woman on horseback stopped and made various maneuvers to get a better look at what we were doing. Difficult on a horse. Then Steve Mirich and Margaret appeared. Having seen the William Wendt exhibition at the Laguna Art Museum with Robert Elliott the previous week, a discussion broke out about Wendt's use of sky tones over his landscapes, and how he incorporated upward or downward viewpoints into a painting. At this point, I could see the shadows were changing my composition. Then Dan Pinkham drove up and stopped. Well, a great chatter started.

Jacques was already finished and packed up. I was done for the day, and headed out to Utrecht Art Supply in Santa Monica.

Wednesday, 14th of Jan, I started teaching a new class at the Palos Verdes Art Center - beginning painting. I gave a talk and then we started some simple painting exercises in thinning out paint, and using color to create form. I'll photograph some of the work this week and we'll see how they progress over the next few months. Should be interesting!

Friday 16th, I went with my son Patrick to the USC Annenberg School of Journalism. They were hosting the World Press Photo 2008 exhibition and seminar. Tim Hetherington, also from Liverpool, who won the World Press Photo in 2007, gave a most dynamic presentation of his photos from West Africa and Afghanistan. He and other presenters later gave a guided tour of all the exhibited photos.

I have been asked by the British Film Institute to write a short essay to accompany their DVD release of the 2008 film documentary "Of Time and The City", which is director Terence Davies autobiographical love song to his home town of Liverpool. The film uses 3 of my photographs, and they're also used in the publicity.

I've been out painting in the snow, and on the beaches south of LA airport. I'm going to post 2 paintings soon. Next week I start teaching at the Palos Verdes Art Center on Tuesday night. It's a beginning painting class. All media. And I'll bring acrylics, oils, watercolor and pastels if you are not sure which to pick.

Currently I've also been very involved with the Redondo HS Auditorium. We have had non-stop shows in since early December, and the new stage manager, Monty, is just getting acclimatized.