Filed under: In the Studio Now
Gallery on the front porch…
…more art in the studio with work-in-progress
The Monadnock Art Tour was a lot of fun this weekend. Over 100 people visited my cleaner-than-it’s-ever-been studio Saturday and Sunday. It was very encouraging and inspiring to hear people respond to the images, the technique and the philosophical/theological/kinda logical ideas behind it all. A few people mentioned they saw my work at the group show at the Jaffrey Civic Center and were intrigued to see more. Almost everyone could relate to the balance of control and freedom in everyday life. Margaret (my wife) served pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese filling, chocolate chip muffins and cider. (I exercised way too much freedom versus control in that instance.) Wait a minute… at least I THINK it was the paintings that people were excited about…
More photos on my Facebook page here.
I’m continuing work on the 150″ x 70″ canvas, arranging the masking blocks to grade the randomness left to right for the red layer, right to left for the blue layer and exposing the black and yellow layers completely randomly at a 1:3 ratio. I’m spattering very light layers of paint, using a technique I’ve been working on and used on the painting I posted on the “Spatter Obsession” entry. The droplets are coming down great: consistent, small, opaque.
But after a few layers of paint, it’s really hard to see what’s actually happening. Or IF anything’s actually happening. The droplets are so sparse, I can’t see any change to the canvas. Usually it’s a great moment when I lay down a cloud of color and watch it transform everything on the surface. But with so few droplets falling, nothing appears to happen. I’ve had to turn off the radio and actually listen for the droplets to make sure something is actually hitting the canvas.
Something is happening, though—the color is building up, and the very sparse, spread-out block pattern is beginning to show the influence of the red/blue bias I built into the math.
This got me thinking about how slowly and subtly God speaks stuff into being in our lives. An awareness dawns on me and I remember it’s been something I’ve been praying about for a few months. Or I realize I feel certain about something I had big doubts about a few years before. How did it happen? I didn’t see it in process for sure. Maybe instead of trying to see, I have to learn to listen to the colors falling.
I’ve been thinking about the wise men from the East—most scholars think they were astrologers from Iraq, or thereabouts— and how little data it took for them to get up and go to Israel to look for the King. And mounting a caravan expedition any distance in those days was a major, big deal. The prophecy in Numbers they probably acted on is oblique at best:
Numbers 24:17 “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; A star shall come forth from Jacob, And a scepter shall rise from Israel, And shall crush through the forehead of Moab, And tear down all the sons of Sheth.”
This messiah business wasn’t part of their culture or tradition. But, they were astrologers and saw something remarkable in the sky and took what they could piece together and went. And ended up with more revelation as a result.
Revelation is always partial. Nobody gets the full picture on anything. Revelation comes in layers, and following up on a little revelation seems to bring on more.
I’ve been working on a series made on gloss-primed masonite, and have been experimenting with techniques to produce tiny, consistent, opaque spatters. The droplets bead up on the gloss surface, and make a nice rich texture. The 4′x4′ square above is the proving ground, and I’m making some headway. I love the imperceptible shifts that go on within these fields— how one color will assert itself and influence the overall tone, and then another. The color field effect is very atmospheric and soothing. But then, I relax pretty easily, and teeny droplets of paint fascinate me. (I’ll have to test this on some type-A friends and see if they’re soothed too.) Plans in the works to explore this on a large scale.
But I wonder— how much or little spatter causes the viewer to see a pattern? How much revelation does it take to cause enlightenment? How much or little does it take for us to see, understand, and then act? (Musical interlude with Tracy Chapman’s song, “Change” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drXwsVYrd20)
In this work, I lightly spattered the remaining layers over a loose gridwork of ping pong balls. Here’s a close up:
Here’s the whole painting. (Pardon the bad lighting.) Is there enough here to mount a caravan expedition to Palestine?
Filed under: Developing the Process, In process #1, Revealing and Obscuring
I’ve been noticing how droplets are a lot more defined on a glossy surface– which fascinates me in the ongoing quest for the perfect spatter. The pointillistic effect has a sharper feel when the dots are distinct. I’ve been working on a series of paintings on gloss-primed masonite and wonder if I can get the same “droplet crispness” on canvas. So, I’m spraying white gloss enamel over a 12′ x 5.5′ stretch of canvas. I plan to do more with white, especially with the idea of defining / negating an image. Hmmm… More pondering to come on the idea of revealing / obscuring.
