I've talked a lot this year about my desire to collaborate more.

We have a new artist at 17th Street Studios named Dean Yasko who has taken one of my old drawings from this show and added his own flair. And now he's going to talk about it...

"My most recent work has been inspired by collaboration and spontaneity so I decided to try and "stay in the lines" and add some color to this fantastic drawing. When you were a kid, did you ever do that thing where you use a bunch of different colors of crayons to color in a piece of poster board, cover it with black tempera paint, and then scratch a design into it? When Beth gave me this drawing to contribute to the collaboration, the first thing I noticed was that the print was black with white lines. I knew that I wanted to add color but I wasn't sure how. After some deliberation, I came across a childhood drawing using the method described above and decided that it would be fun to try to simulate this technique.

Thanks for checkin out our drawing. If you would like to see more of my work go to www.deanyasko.com"

Inspiration

Outcome

11 x 14"
acrylic and colored pencil on black paper

I made It Don't Come Easy last fall for my show at the Birdhouse in November 2011.

I put a lot of things I had been thinking about in this piece. It references my business endeavors that fall under the moniker With Bear Hands, the 100 (well, 99) mason jar paintings I made last year, and also the inclinations I was having at the time to start making abstract paintings.

I wanted to make a painting about the things I've been working toward, the things I've wanted for so long, all the hours spent in my studio and devoted to art, where I want to go from here. I wanted to talk about how chasing a dream (that you can't even see) can feel terribly unnatural, like domesticating a wild animal. And even when things seem to be shaping up around you, how you still might feel the inclination to run off into the wilderness- naked, with no possessions- and never come back.

But making this painting was really enjoyable, and that's the curious thing about art (or maybe any dream). It can feel like it's going to kill you, and at the same time, the act of doing it can ease all amount of frustration.

***

It Don't Come Easy
acrylic on canvas
2011
36" x 30"
$1500

8 x 10 prints of this painting are for sale here.

This is pretty interesting (to me).

I was perusing this month's Vogue and came across this photo.






















What is interesting about it? Well, I made this painting back in 2010.

Pool at Night, acrylic on canvas, 2010, 32" x 52"

The chairs, the shape of the pool, the grass, the hedge, the walls... the similarities surprise me.

***

The painting was based on fond memories of swimming at night in my grandparents' pools. Yes, both sets had one. I may have spent just as much of my childhood immersed in water as I did on dry land. I loved when my sisters, friends, and I could swim at night with the pool light on. Pool-light-at-night is still one of my most favorite colors.

Oddly enough, the painting was also inspired by something far less innocent- the movie The Graduate, specifically the scenes in the Robinson's house, with the green filling the windows. I wanted to convey the glamor of that movie, to show someone rich lived there. Without knowing it at the time, I also conveyed the emptiness and sadness of the story as well.





Also, there was the pool.