spaces

This is a personal venture, the blog, so I hesitate to apologize for not posting in over 2 weeks(?), but I do feel a sense of obligation as I write.
I’ve been meaning to post photos from the painting I was working on. I’ve since finished one of the works, stretched the canvas over a frame (now 5'x5' in dimension) and now find myself wondering if this painting really needs to be stretched over a frame. I painted the piece on the loose canvas on the floor (for a few reasons: the graphite stick wrote better on the surface and I could work on all parts of the canvas without the awkward reach of large workings on the wall) and have since grown endeared to its nature as loose, even wrinkled and with its unprimed, ripped canvas edge (a sort of frame in itself). The painting now hangs on my studio wall, with its collection of birds flying up from the lower left bottom/edge. It’s what I wanted, though not what I wanted as I feel unsatisfied and ready to do another. I think I must take the first off of its frame to relieve the too-formal taught surface it now boasts. I wish for the three-dimensionality it used to have in its waves of slightly warped, painted fabric (you can see this in the photo-collage above as the pictures were taken in process). I am happy with the written atmosphere of breathing transcribed onto the painting’s surface. That is most prominent in the piece, and I am glad of all the negative space it lends. I am more interested in the negative space. I may make the birds even smaller on the next one. Might the birds be more a part of the atmosphere created by the layers of writing and gesso? I think so.

Having made the photo-collage out of a few pictures taken of the work, I am realizing a possible change to the work. The assemblage is not accurate to what is on my wall now - all of the written text is the same size and obviously, the lighting across the work is not representational of the actual white and gray tones of the gesso and graphite. I think I may do some layers of larger and smaller text sizes to signify a kind of near/far in the atmosphere.

Furthermore, while running today, I saw a giant flock of starlings take flight out of a tree and fly across the overcast sky in a mass of movement and flowing form. First I should say, it was gorgeous and I stopped running because I had to take it in. Second, I realized I want my birds to be tiny and far away, similar to those in my sight today. I may lightly layer gesso over some of them in order to attain more depth along with the near/far text layering.

It will be a few weeks before I can get back in my studio and work out these issues. I hope to feel regenerated and ready after time apart. Now, I'm in Virginia for 10 days to visit beautiful family and friends. It's been a lovely time so far, and I look forward to the days ahead. I'm considering purchasing small papers in order to do some miniature drawings such as the painting... We'll see what happens.

Hoping to organize and post photos from the Sedona AZ trip soon... keep checking in!

p.s. Thanks to Erin for checking the blog so diligently despite my lack of contribution over these past few weeks.