Self Portraits with Michael Tarnoff

In this episode I collaborate with artist Michael Tarnoff to make self-portraits inspired by Chuck Close.

 

Links

• O'Hanlon Center for the Arts
• Michael Tarnoff's Instagram
• Chuck Close Website
• Wikipedia Entry for Chuck Close
• Procreate for the iPad
• Interlude music: https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2017/13/1497796312321798

 

Michael's Self Portrait

Thomas' Self Portrait

Original Photos

 

Thomas: My guest today is Michael Tarnoff. Michael is a painter, a mixed media artist, as well as a photographer and all-around creative person. Welcome Michael.

Michael: Thank you for having me Thomas.

Thomas: Yeah, I'm glad to have you, Michael. I'm curious, before we get started, I'm want to know if there's some creative project that you've been working on or you're planning to work on right now?

Michael: Well, you know with COVID, things changed for me artistically  as far as access to my painting space and such, and I've been doing more photography and small works. And right now, we're in the mountains in the Utah area and I've been fascinated with ice and snow and cold and what happens with nature with that.

So I've been thinking about, in the back of my mind, a series of photographs and just thinking about them as a series of what nature does in the cold. Because I never really lived in the cold and witnessed it.

Thomas: Right.

Michael: There's just fascinating things like when the fog comes in and then the cold comes in. If there's just the right amount of humidity, ice crystals form everywhere and it looks, it's just, it's magic.

So I'm just kind of keeping my eyes open for that and just being witness to the magic that nature creates.

Thomas: Well that's great, that sounds like a real process of discovery.

Michael: It is, it is. I love that you say that because where I got most of my art learning from, not so much teaching but learning I'll call it, was at O'Hanlan Center for the Arts in Mill Valley. And the founder Ann O'Hanlan, one of my favorite sayings of hers was, “Exploration comes first, discovery perhaps later.”

Thomas: Ah.

Michael: And it’s just, it's so true when it comes to art and life.

So it's really, this really is a process of exploration and discovery, with, I mean the medium is nature and the cold and what, how it's so much different from the temperate Bay Area.

Thomas: Right, right.

Michael: Yeah.

Thomas: And I've been following you on Instagram, and your photographs have been just brilliant.

Michael: Thank you.

Thomas: For my listeners, I'll put a link to Michael's Instagram in the show notes. Well, exploration I think is a good segue into what we're going to be doing today, which is You And I Make A Thing. And as you know, what my goal here is to come up with something that we can do together, either something that we do in parallel or something that we actually collaborate on.

And Michael, prior to our conversation today, I've asked you to come up with three things that you might be interested in doing, and I've done the same. And what I was thinking of is that we'd just bounce back and forth with our ideas and then we'll see if we can coalesce on something that sounds like fun.

How about that?

Michael: That sounds great.

Thomas: Why don't you start with something that's on your list.

Michael: Okay. Let me preface it with saying that when you asked me to think of these things, it actually was harder than I thought it was going to be. And I couldn't because I'm just I'm so spontaneous with my art. I actually never think about what I want to do ahead of time and just sort of let the process flow with that in that moment.

Thomas: Okay.

Michael: I mean, I might know ahead of time I'm going to draw just because of, you know, whatever's happening.

Thomas: Right.

Michael: So this was, this was very different for me. So the first thing I thought of, and these were all things, at least a couple of 'em were things that I've always thought about, but I have never done.

Thomas: Uh huh.

Michael: The first one was doing encaustic painting. Which is painting with paint that is mixed with wax and it sort of creates, on like a panel, it creates this dreamy kind of thing.

And I've never done it before. I don't know how to do it. and I don't even know if it's practical, but it was the ve