I’m grateful
Thank you to: Liz, Chez, Kathryn, Brett, Jennifer and AmbivalenceGirl for your support, your comments and good wishes in response to my recent posts. They mean a lot to me. I also thank, Aquileana, Icsoup, ItsAMustardworld, ShootingVenice and Berlin, Mejfote, LaLocaBrujita, SoLetUsKnow, RevealIllusions, P0vestiare, MichaelEhrhard, Mundoinesperado and CrazyArtist for liking my posts during the past couple of difficult days. (Please pardon me if I left anyone out.)
I thank ALL of the rest of you for reading my posts!
For those of you who haven’t read the posts from yesterday and the day before, my wife and I are dealing with a situation in which we had to move suddenly from where we lived during the past 6 years.
Still disoriented, though
My painting below was done at the kitchen table. The light was not as good as the light in my former studio. My traveling case (which had been empty and idled for a couple of years) served as the source from which I chose my paints (unlike the familiar cubby holes I had at home, I mean the place where we formally lived).
Today’s experiment
Today’s study is a (more-or-less) abstract expressionist snapshot of the initiating incident. The abstractions seem to be obvious representations of objects, coupled with obvious symbols.
Bile
9″x12″ 140# Rough Watercolor Block
I didn’t get it entirely the way I wanted, but most of the pictorial elements are present. I would like to continue exploring in this vein for the next few days to see if I can gain some subtlety and perhaps a bit more mystery while still conveying an important message.
I am so sorry for your sudden change in abode. I would be really upset as well. Your painting illustrates this perfectly!
I love that you are strong and dedicated and go on painting and making art from life. It is perhaps easier to do that from a distance; the immediate response captures a rawness and perspective which I think is quickly lost. I like this painting. Your choice of title draws me to the bile-coloured batch (I missed your telling us precisely which yellow it is – one of the things I love about your posts is the litany of colour names you share) whereas before I read your title I was focused on the delicacy of the red spatter. I am wishing you a peaceful day in which new routines start to settle and new cubby holes appear. Liz
Hi Liz,
I have found that with writing, there has to be some distance between the event and the artistic expression. With painting, however, a loaded brush and a quick streak across the paper does not require distance at all. In fact, it is probably better to paint in a moment of emotional upheaval like the action painters did.
Sorry for the missing color names. As I recall, the yellow was cadmium yellow pale, the red was Winsor red the blue may have been Peacock blue and the fleshy color was one I mixed myself, with cadmium red, yellow ochre and a lot of white.
As always, thank you for your good wishes and your perceptive comments.
best,
Jack
That’s a very interesting observation Jack. Very occasionally I have produced a reasonably successful poem in quick response to something but more often they take a long time – sometimes many years – to cook. Thank you for the paint names. I am primarily words-focused so I these help me to make sense of colour. So I might ask ‘who was the peacock?’. More dangerously I have let my weakness for colour names go where it probably should not. Two summers ago I was getting my house decorated and decided to choose the paint by name rather than colour. It might sound bizarre but I could make sense of labels more easily than the square of colour on the tin. Of course the success of the project depending entirely on the person in marketing coming up with coherent names. I’m afraid the person who named the paint which I put on my dining room ceiling got it wrong 🙁
Hi Liz,
Yes, I think time needs to elapse to get a wider view. In my case I would probably perseverate on minuscule details while missing the big picture. The important things still rise above the layers of dust deposited by time.
best,
Jack