Cat Power – Names

Cat Power, 24" x 16", oil on canvas paper, 2014/2017

 There are several Cat Power songs in the list this year. Recently I pulled You Are Free from the holdings to be included in a small stack of records next to my player. You Are Free is my favorite Cat Power record but I hadn't listen to it in a long time. Most of the songs from the LP have featured in my Top 100 but curiously enough it was the song Names that made the biggest impression on me this time. Names had never featured in a Top 100 list but is as beautiful, intense, and interesting as some of the mainstay songs. The song is a counting song in which a series of children are described who progress in age—one year for each new name. The process of the painting is rather curious, as I seem to switch between styles and processes and attitude about three times a month. Cat Power was painted over the course of five days. While I'm in the process of reroofing my house I took five minutes her, five minutes there to work the painting. Every time I needed to go to the studio to pick up a tool or a piece of lumber Cat Power greeted me upon entering and invited me to take another five minute break. The first three days of the process the painting existed as a monochrome purple but after that colors fit in real easy. So it's a bit of a casual painting, without stretches of real focus. Well, the painting is done but the roof is not even half way there yet. (To be continued...)