No studio work was done last week. I was only here for about 15 minutes total and that was to bring a large, rolled up unstretched painting from home and to water the plants. Whatever else I was going to do was put aside. Why? Well, our current everyday life came to a halt when my partner’s 89 y/o father had to be hospitalized due to complications from kidney disease. More precisely, it was because he was exhibiting signs of cognitive breakdown due to a perfect storm of bad eating, sleeping and water-drinking habits as of late. It came to a head with three phone calls during one week to Julia because he thought he was in a hotel room in Madrid and not his own apartment. Each time she had to drive out to his place, about 30 minutes outside of Philly with good traffic, to reassure him that he was indeed in his own home and got him back on track. The last time it happened, we thought it was time to get him checked out to rule out dementia and get to the root cause of what was happening and brought him to the emergency room at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. We were up for almost twelve hours before he was finally admitted and had a room.
I was impressed with the professionalism and helpful nature of the doctors, nurses and hospital staff that worked at Jefferson. It was great to see the day-to-day improvements in his health and demeanor as his nutritional intake got better and his meds were adjusted. It was nice to see him improve, returning to being his lucid self again. Aging itself can be tough enough with physiological and mental changes occurring. Add in a chronic disease and things can get bad fast. Because of this episode, despite his being really independent, his living situation had to change drastically and he now has a live-in caretaker. We weren’t sure how he was going to take to this new development, but so far, so good. It’s better to keep him in familiar surroundings and his place is perfect as a first-floor, no steps involved apartment.
So much had to be done in a short amount of time. Thankfully, a 24/7 caretaker was found through the service he’d already had for once-a-week help with cleaning. We had to clear out the room the caretaker is sleeping in the night before his release, which previously held a lot of his personal belongings. Julia’s daughter and her boyfriend were able to help with that and it made a big difference after the week we’d had. Even though things have calmed down and it’s Monday, now, I think both of us are still pretty wiped out after being so wound up emotionally and physically for days.
On a lighter note, one of the cool things about visiting Jefferson was getting to check out the views from one of the enclosed bridges between two wings of the hospital. During one of our breaks, we walked further down one hall than before and found ourselves with views like this. Looking westward on Samson Street, on the right you can see Amy Sherald’s mural called “Untitled”. Now, here are two things I want to share about that mural: the first is that the building that it was painted on once housed a mini Target that opened in 2016 and closed in May 2023 due to “low performance”, according to reports I saw online. What’s ironic is that even though this location closed prior to Target dismantling it’s DEI policies, this mural still stands tall. The second item is something I didn’t know about until I did a little research today, and that is the model for Sherald’s mural was a teenager from Philadelphia named Najee Spencer-Young. The story of her becoming the inspiration for Untitled is here.
Seaside (Straight Up Hypnagogic Trance )(2021), one of my largest canvas-based painting to date, was partially the result of a frustrating lack of studio space at the time. My workspace was in my 2 bedroom apartment in South Philly where there was no space at all to make something this big. I wanted to make something large that would be a focal point in the rear room of the Bridgette Mayer Gallery for my solo show, Walk Sign Is On, in the fall of 2021. My solution was to make a painting on unstretched canvas right in the gallery. I’d already finished the other works for the show and still had a little over a week or so before the opening, so I had time. I bought a big cut of canvas, prepped the space with tarps and plastic, pinned it to the wall and got to work.
I’d never used orange as a major color in any of my paintings, so I gave it a shot as the base and built everything else off of that. Over the course of a few days, there was a lot of pull/pull between colors and scale until the composition felt right. Along with the glyphs, I incorporated some linear elements that seemed to be entering the space of the painting from somewhere else, something I employ fairly often in my work as a way of reorganizing and complicating the painting space, causing visual tension while indicating a sense of things being in flux, of the “in betweeness” we all live in from moment to moment.
The title, Seaside (Straight Up Hypnagogic Trance), came to me as I was working on this. There was something about it that reminded me of being oceanside, falling into a state of relaxed, partial sleep under the sun, listening to the waves crash, random bits of conversations and cries of gulls and children all mixed together. Again, a state of liminal existence between here and there.
Hypnagogic: hyp·na·gog·ic/ˌhipnəˈɡäjik/ adjective: relating to the state immediately before falling asleep.
I don’t know how I found the word, hypnagogic. I may have done a search with the phrase “in between” or something and it was one of the suggested words. I know it’s not a word that’s used often in every day language, so I had to put it in the title.
So, for the past four years, Seaside… has been in residence in my basement at home, rolled up, covered, stored safely and taking up space. Thankfully, it was recently sold and is the main reason that I was even at the studio last week, as mentioned in the first section of this post. I had to bring it here to check its condition and remeasure for the eventual stretched dimensions, which will be 84” x 96”. I’m storing it here until it has to be delivered and stretched on site.
Unfortunately, I can’t keep it rolled up and leaning against a wall because the cardboard tubes I have it around isn’t quite long enough. So, the only solution is to have it stay in the little aisle I made between my work table and the wall. I’m having to remind myself every time I get up to go to the other end of the studio that I can’t just go straight ahead for the time-being. It’s a small thing, but makes a difference in how I navigate the space. Not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Daily Observations :: Scenes recently
The neighbor right behind us has what looks like a bank of pink bulbs in one of their rooms that casts a kind of surreal light into our bathroom when they have it on at night. I’m not sure if it’s some kind of grow light or something else. Makes for some interesting shots, though.
No hand in this glove. Not sure if someone did this on purpose, but it made for a cool photo.
Part of a sidewalk mural that I’ve managed to miss seeing all these years.
Hey, there’s something for everyone.
Old school apartment building sign for the Franklin Residences from a garage roof.
Smile!
Thanks for reading and being here, see you soon!
Visit TimMcFarlane.com to learn more about my work.
Works available through the Bridgette Mayer Gallery
I’m sorry to hear about your partner’s dad. I’ve been there. I was pretty much the only care taker for my mom for the last 5 years of her life. She was as independent as she could be until her stroke at 91. I ended up moving her to assisted living where she enjoyed 24 hour help as needed for two more years. I hope your partners dad with live in assistance has many more years ahead of him. Sometimes life just gets in the way of studio time. It’s just the way it is, so don’t be hard on yourself.
Congratulations on selling the painting. After it’s stretched and hung up be sure to post photos in situ of it. We’d love to see it.
Tim, sending good thoughts regarding your partner’s father. This time of aging parents is so hard.