When Georgia Met Henri

I dreamed last night that Georgia O'Keeffe and Henri Matisse met. In my dream they were waiting for a seminar kind of thing to begin, and while they were waiting, they drew portraits of each other. In my dream, for a moment, I was Matisse drawing an elegant sketch of Georgia with her hat on.

There's no reason why the two couldn't have met, I suppose, aside from the fact that they lived a few thousand miles away from each other. I don't think Henri ever visited America and of course Georgia spent most of her life in New Mexico. But they could have met, maybe.

The dream reminded me -- along with my having made it to the studio twice since last week -- that I haven't posted my latest paintings. I guess I'm just not thrilled with them. In fact, at the end of September, when I returned to my studio after having been absent since early July, I wrote the following message to my studio mates:

Subject: Sorry About Ugliness

I haven't been in, as you both know, in a couple of months. Upon arriving in my studio I was faced with the last two paintings I completed way back when. I'd forgotten I'd painted them.

I'd like to take this moment to apologize for making you look at those ugly-ass pieces of crap for the past two months. Wow, those were a couple of sucky paintings. Really, no one should have had to see them once, let alone for weeks.

One of the two paintings to which I referred I've already begun to paint over, although that's going pretty badly, too, so I may end up sanding down the whole shebang. I hate wasting paint like that, but there you go. The other one I've decided to keep for now. I'm not sure why. I guess there are some things I like about it, although there are some things that are pretty terrible, too. What I was trying to do was -- well, I'd been looking over a large, well-printed book of Van Gogh reproductions I have here, and I decided to try a more impasto, wildly colored kind of thing, and...well, see for yourself.

I like the figure, she's so sweet and vulnerable, or anyway seems so to me. I don't like the dresser behind her which appears to be molded out of dogshit. Then again our dresser really is that color. For some reason in real life it doesn't look like dogshit. Not that it looks, you know, good or anything, but it doesn't look that bad.

The next three paintings I've done since my return in September. I'm out of panels again. I'm not really thrilled with these, either, although She's Tired has really grown on me as I've seen it a few more times. I like the colors.