Category: My Art

#401 finished

#401 finished

Here it is. What do you think? Hope I didn’t do too much. 35×22″ Acrylic on canvas

 

#401 WIP 003

Laying the ground. Critical decisions to make. Leave ‘unfinished’, with minimal reworking, or continue to something closer to my original impulse? I don’t follow through on initial ideas, in painting any more than in my writing. The first brush stroke, the first word, and a dialog begins. I never know where the conversation will lead.
View GALLERY HERE.

Drawing the thread, stitching the world together, a line at a time.

images

Drawing calms me. It’s very physical; I don’t need the muscular strength of throwing pottery on a wheel (something I did full time for almost 10 years)–but requires every bit the control and coordination. There’s always an element of drawing in my painting–even in the most abstract pieces, and when I get away from that, something is lost in the finished work.
Even the trash assemblages are a form of drawing, not with marks on a flat surface–but in three dimensions, creating lines, geometric or chaotic forms, tonal variations.
My need for this–to return to drawing, day after day without breaks, has progressed–gradually at first, when I returned to making art in July of 2012, to the point now that if I go two or three days without drawing my level of physical anxiety increases and my thoughts spiral toward patterns of depression.
At the end of a day of shopping, cooking, preparing a canvas, taking care of this business or that–I may be exhausted, but I have to take the time–even if only a half an hour sketching figures from an anatomy book.
I didn’t realize until recently–how important this was for my emotional and physical health. It’s that integration of interior and exterior perception… stitching together the fabric of reality.
The metaphor calls to mind, my mother, who was deeply skilled at both drawing–and a seamstress/tailor. I stitch together those ancient bonds, as well, memories and the present. As with poetry. Word by word. Line by line.

#400

#400

#400 25×33″ Acrylic, canvas strips, paper on Masonite. Photo misses the 3 dimensional–curving delineation is from pieces that were left stuck on the surface when I ripped off stuffed rolls of paper and fabric from an earlier piece (#134 “Late Capitalism”)–like fat bloody infected intestines. The ‘face’ is from those fragments.The “Chagalesque” character was not intentional, and definitely not something I’ll pursue in the future. But what the fuck, I like the colors.

View GALLERY HERE.

W.I.P. 3 stages… stage 1

WIP and pics 001

32×23 Acrylic on canvas. Go through the same stages. The first, as here–shows promise. Almost enough to let it stand, as is…but not quite. The next stage, I ruin it. Put it away. Sleep on it. In a dream, or while taking a walk, I get a sense of what I need to do. The third stage–I rescue it… bring it to completion… or really do ruin it. Prepare the canvas to paint over it and start a new painting.

What will become of this one?

View GALLERY HERE.