Tracking the Right Brain-Part 2

I do not sketch before I start a painting.  Painting non-representational (I try to avoid the word abstract- it is too loaded and too easily misunderstood), I instead start by imagining palettes that contrast and play off each other well, and then spend time color mixing (physically and mentally) as a way of "planning" a painting.  However, I have tried to expand the concept of palette to mean more than just color, but also include the texture, current events, and zeitgeist of a given moment.  This means that I am usually hunting out promising little nuggets as I go about my day. Here is an example I am currently mulling over: I recently uncovered my copy of The Beatles album "Magical Mystery Tour."  I hadn't listened to the album for years, although I could hear some songs from this album on many local radio stations since it is always popular to play The Beatles songs.  I started thinking about how The Beatles' music has just became available on itunes recently and remembered one reporter on NPR predicting that this would not amount to much considering how most people already have music by The Beatles in one form or another.  This struck me as a little funny and a little sad, this strange cycle of pop culture.  Once, Magical Mystery Tour really was magical, The Beatles being pretty avant garde and innovative in their time (I think the album was released as a part of the film, which involved loading circus performers and the the band into a bus without a script, and filming their random journey).  But we live in a culture of saturation, and so they are able to become background noise, acceptable as office music, as one local radio station loves to say.  And yet, there is still a continual push to reintroduce The Beatles to our world- the release of un-heard studio sessions a few years ago, the anniversaries of album releases commemorated by new packaging of, say, Sargent Pepper, the observation of John Lennon's birthday marked by new interviews and tribute stories- all of these readily come to mind.  How much re-listening can we do?  It seems like we will not hear anything new.  And yet, I was really excited to see Magical Mystery Tour the other day, and put it right onto my ipod. And right now I am studying the colors of the album cover in my studio.

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