A few months ago, back in November, the 14th to be exact, I started a blog on Journalspace with the intention of writing about my painting, just painting, nothing else. I called it Speculations & Revelations because that is what painting is to me. The blog is about what I do in my studio. It was interesting to expose the thought processes that go into painting, to talk about the mundane (stretching canvases, crating, cleaning up) and the inspired (painting). At this point, though, I want to include what I have become used to writing about there into this blog. Not have two separate blogs. I think I needed to separate these areas of my life because, in the past, it has been so hard to talk about my painting. I would say that the paintings should speak for themselves. I still feel that way, but I have enjoyed writing about what I do in my studio and I want to write about it here now. It is a different kind of writing, when it is about my working. I will try it for a while and see what happens.
Even when I was in school it was hard to talk about my work. Especially then. I remember the last day of classes; my instructor sat down with me to review my paintings. At the end, with me being silent for the entire session, he said “You still have trouble talking about your work.” I nodded and he said “That’s all right. Just paint.” He also said not to look at others’ work, just paint. That part would be too hard, like taking a lollipop out of the mouth of a child (or a meat bone out of Lila’s mouth). So I look; I paint. And now I talk. I talk in school. I learned to talk in school because I have to; it would be impossible to teach without talking. And I talk here.
So . . . in that vein, I had a very productive morning in my studio. I’ve been working on a couple of triptychs, 60” x 84”. One was intended to be blue and has turned into a mix of light purple and blue. I think I have resolved the painting but I will wait a few days to see how I feel. In this painting, I had tried to keep some horizontal lines I put in at the beginning. But. I don’t seem to do it. My usual visual mode is vertical.
In the other triptych, there was a large area in the middle that felt too dark in the context of the rest of the painting. I’ve been trying to keep some imagery in the middle of my canvases. But again. I don’t seem to be able to do it. One of the reasons I enjoy working on multiple panel paintings is that my usual tendency to push imagery to the edges of the canvas moves into the center of the painting when I put the panels together. In this painting, when I subdued the heavy part in the middle, another area became too bold as well. But I didn’t want to lose it. I felt the painting would lose some of its vitality if I did. So I added some black in strategic places: at the outer edges of the piece. I think it works. I will know when I look at it again, when time has done its work. Still, it does amaze me how just a little mark, a small amount of color in the right place can effect a piece so profoundly. Often when I am teaching, I enjoy showing a student the power of a small mark or just the way you end a line. How important the “little” things are.
To sum up, I can see that there are two things I feel I “should” work into my paintings but when I try, it feels uncomfortable and I paint them out. One is the use of the horizontal; the other is being able to put something in the middle of the canvas (and keep it there!). Everything seems to go off to the edges and most of the horizontal lines get painted out. But I will keep thinking about it. Trying. It’s a challenge and I like a challenge. And that (the challenge, the things I “take out”) bubbles underneath the surface of the painting, quite literally actually.
And tomorrow I hope to have some photos of what I am talking about here.