arriving

I have, I think, successfully assembled 7 or 8 interesting groupings of panels. I played around with different combinations (as at left) until I couldn't see them freshly anymore. I took photos of what I had assembled. Then Bonnie, my friend and cello instructor, spent an hour with me suggesting new combinations and helping me see new possibilities. Tomorrow I will review all and decide, knowing that I have a decent number of pieces for the Gallery 24 show in July. If I get a few more pieces finished before then, that will be icing on the cake; it is just a relief to feel that I am ready for the show. It will take a couple of days to bolt the panels together, price and name them, and photograph them. But I have four weeks until the show opens, and I have never been so prepared so early before. Hurrah!

In addition to being excited about the pieces for the show, and wanting to create a few more, I am eager to move on to the next batch of works. I am not quite through with the palette and style of this group, but I also continually envision future series in other palettes and other styles. Now that these are assembled, they are so clearly a first effort -- or do artists always feel that way about work that is finished? But they look rough, in some ways, and I see things in them that I want to expand upon, as well as things that I'd like to avoid in future.

Also, this series was an experiment. I didn't know whether it would work for me. It so clearly did, and I feel so much at home in this way of working, now, that I look forward to being able to explore more deeply and build on what I have learned this past month (only a month?), without the pressure of an upcoming show. So, this blog will continue, perhaps in a more coherent and thoughtful vein, as I continue to work on board and in cold wax, abstractly.

I'll post photos of the final groupings when they are ready.