John Murray classes week of April 6, 2015

The Digital Order

Regime of line/grid

Fresh from the leaves and fruit

To lion kill marrow nourished

Spaces

Sprung from the veldt’s grasses

Hemoglobin-stained fuel

Of invention war cry

Ripping shroud of history

-john murray

Last week (the first week of the Spring term) went very well.

I saw some good work and much effort on the part of many artists.

Next week let's try working with process and language.

The process can be any method of mark making that you have never tried.

The language can be any poem, story, myth, belief that you find interesting.

The result should be surprising!

I have added my poem and my painting above.

Where is yours?

See you next week, john.

John Murray classes week of March 30, 2015

Welcome to the Spring term.
Thank you for choosing my classes and somewhat radical approach to art making.
I love Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and like to see what artists can make of it in plastic form... the ballet is phenomenal and the music caused a riot at it's Paris opening in 1913.
What can you do with it?
I will play for all classes next week.
Some will love it.
Some will hate it.
See you next week.John.

John Murray classes week of March 23, 2015

Masterpiece?

I love incidental paint stains and accidental marks and blemishes.
I took this picture with my phone camera in the slop sink room behind the studio.
What a magical mess akin to Bosch or maybe Twombley.
Images like this feed my neurotic urge toward the deconstruction of traditional painting procedures and push my visual and metaphorical concepts toward the vanishing point.
I find great pleasure in using ideas like these in my pictures.
Perhaps you could try a picture next week that uses found painting scumbles/stains and accidents in concert with your more intentional visions.
See you next week, John.

John Murray classes week of March 16, 2015

AMERICA
Has fusion ruined jazz?
Is the heartland best known by its ubiquitous architectonics/
Is the soul a superstitious construct/
Where does the reptilian tarmac intrusion lead/
but from sea to dying sea...


So what do you think?
Is there an idea here?
When was the last time you were in a McDonalds?
Have you ever driven across America?
Make art!
See you next week, 
John.

John Murray classes week of March 9, 2015

Rest in Peace You Funny, Lovely Bastard.

I met Bill on a beautiful June day in 1967 and we have been friends, fellow artists, fighters and cohorts ever since.
I will miss him more than I can express.
See you next week, john.

John Murray classes first week of March 2015

I am on the brink of insanity with this weather.
I hope you're doing better than I am.
Next week try to paint a truly meaningless picture, some image with no value to yourself or anyone else.

Sometimes at my most desperate I do my best work,

as Samuel Beckett said, "I can't go on...I must go on..."

See you next week, John 

  

John Murray classes week of February 9, 2015

The snow piles up and over our plans.
Next week try a white on white painting.
Malevich, Rauschenberg, Ryman are a few who have denied traditional full-chroma art.
Underpaint and cover white, paint black and scrape to white, spray, wash, scrub...
This a hard winter, pile the paint thick, scrape it away and wash it out, pour it on, peel it back, smudge it, step on it...see you next week. I hope!
Love, john.