Red Guitar (Souvenir of Istanbul)
 

https://onlyofobjects.files.wordpres...rottes-git.jpg

Oil on canvas, 36" x 48", 2014

I ADORE the detail in this (and in many of your paintings).
I love its nonchalance. Again as in many of your paintings. And of course your non-stingy use of the medium. Much to admire from my POV.

Life affirming.

("Chock Full of Nuts" coffee can? Why not.) Not relevant : The last time I was in the completely roofed Grand Bazaar (not so long ago), I found navigating easier using a pocket compass.

3 by 4 foot so I'm guessing this is much more impressive in real life, will you mail it to me? I have just the wall for it.
Just kidding...

Thanks, folks!

Cyn, thanks for "nonchalance". That's a good word for my approach, I think. When I finish a still life, I find all sorts of unintended stuff in it. I guess nonchalance is my version of keeping my head out of the game, to the extent that I manage that. And that is where better things might emerge.

Allen, the guitar and the hookah were purchased under that roof. I had all sorts of vendors following me through that amazing market. Thanks for "life affirming"!

Ross, I definitely mail these things. Let me put it that way.

Rick

REVISION: Added apples.
http://onlyofobjects.files.wordpress.../epples-21.jpg

I am glad you added the apples; the color is so lovely just there.

Am I going mad? The sizes of everything - the sizes! In relation to each other, I mean. Is that a real...?

I have so many of these things in my life, typewriter, apples, cans of things and the shisha pipe I found dumped in Abertillery park, which sits beside the lovely lavatory pan at the top of the garden. "Installations", doncherknow...

Oh, come now, Mr Mullin - you're having fun with me, n'est-ce pas?

If not, I apologise for the great shout of delighted laughter that you probably heard across the pond. It means I'm seeing something that isn't there. Again.

But if I am so enchanted by what I "see", does that matter? To you, I mean.

I am still smiling.

Ha! Well, I subjugate the relative size of things to larger concerns in designing a picture, Ann. That said:

A) It's a delicate balance.

B) The coffee can I used is huge. Larger than any you would see in England. And the guitar is very small--not a toy, but probably a soprano acoustic guitar, if such a designation exists. It was manufactured in Spain, home of the guitar, which produces the instrument in a broad range of sizes.

I'm kind of glad that you're jarred by the dimension of things. Pleasantly jarred, it seems. I must admit, though, that I am somewhat jarred by your being jarred by a concern for the relative sizes! Pleasantly jarred.

Thanks.
RM

So I'm not mad - they are illogical and the lack of logic is part of your process. I am more than happy with that.

You are not telling me that that's a diddy guitar no bigger than a coffee-can or that the mighty Remington is as fat as a Fender. Just that these are your things and I can take them or leave them.

I'll take them, please, just as they are. See me smiling like the little black-and-white Rick-Jesus down there on the left, curled in the curve of the hookah.

Thanks Ann,

You do raise an interesting point. In the golden age of Dutch still life painting, everything was drawn in proportion to other things in the picture, and also drawn to the exact size of the thing being painted. Max Beckmann, one of the greatest still life painters of the 20th century (along with Paula Modersohn Becker, Pierre Bonnard, and Chaim Soutine) was seriously playful in sizing things, bending everything to picture design and, moreover, to his myth-making vision. He is a big influence!

Glad you like this one.

Rick

Casey,

I missed your comment. Thanks. I felt I needed the color and some form on the swing of white cloth. The threat was cluttering the motif. Glad you like the apples.

Rick

I am pro-apples too

Thanks Cyn. They are dry now. There is no turning back!
~,:^)
RM