I have had a couple of very interesting days. Yesterday, Friday, my gallery owner from San Francisco, Linda of Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art, came for a studio visit. We are planning an exhibit September 9. (How I met her is an interesting story. Aaron was walking down Argyle Street in Halifax last summer and saw a friend out on a restaurant patio having drinks. He joined the group of people his friend was with and met the sister of his friend’s friend, who said she was looking for Nova Scotia artists to represent in her gallery in San Francisco. So Aaron said: “My mother’s an artist.” I can imagine what she thought: “Everyone’s mother is an artist.” I emailed her, she called me, I sent some work, I've been sending work, she's been marketing it, and the story continues.)
Linda was very enthusiastic about my new work when she saw it yesterday. But she also challenged me to lose the “x’s” that I have been putting in almost every piece. Now, I’m not attached to the “x’s”, I just get tired of circles and lines and need a mark, a color in a specific spot. And being obsessive (not compulsive), I sometimes get carried away with a mark. So this morning I worked into my new paintings, finding ways to either eliminate or sublimate the “x’s.” And I do see what she means. The “x” is a universal symbol that has deeper meaning than the painting needs. It stops rather than illuminates. The other symbols I use have mutated so that they don’t read only as themselves and I can see the “x” is finally doing the same because of the prod from Linda. Interesting.
Posted by leya at June 26, 2004 03:54 PM