getting beyond intuition

The time has come (walrus or no) to pull together a couple of montages (I'm not happy with that term; I need to consult a thesaurus). I am comfortable enough with what I'm doing to include a few pieces in my show in July -- and I have two or three more weeks to finish those. However, the gallery wants a photograph for the show announcement, and they need it this coming week. So I need to find at least one grouping that I like. (Although as I write this, it occurs to me that the photo on the announcement need not be of a final arrangement, just one that I don't mind showing to the public. It needn't be bolted together, and the components could be moved around after the photo is taken. Hmmm.)

At any rate, the issue of using intuition versus using "rules", or using a balance or blend of the two, raises its head again as I start to look seriously at multi-panel arrangements. Creating each separate panel, I still debate the intuition-vs-formal-criteria question in my mind, but I've gotten used to doing so, and can switch back and forth between the two modes, at least to some extent. I haven't really stopped to analyze when I'm using intuition and when I'm thinking about value, composition, balance, etc., but I sense that I am using both as I put down and texturize paint.

As I've moved panels around into different arrangements over the last couple of days, I have used some conscious criteria, such as the color variation that I mentioned in my last post. Anticipating final decisions, I find myself seeking something more concrete than intuition. The few formal criteria of which I've been aware are things like too much (or too little) obvious pattern, too harsh (or too subtle) a color contrast, colors that work together or don't, lack of focus or too many foci. But these specifics arise more frequently as questions (is this arrangement too fussy? do those two colors work next to each other?) than as answers. When I do come up with an arrangement I like, such as the one above, I don't always know why, and I wish I did. On the other hand (or am I getting too self-consciously fussy here?), I'm not seeking a how-to document, and I do like using my intuition. I'd like to have a master checklist of "montage criteria" to use as a tool when I want to, and also to use in fine-tuning my intuition over time. I'm not sure they would be the same criteria that I use in creating individual panels, although I'm sure there would be some overlap.

I suppose that with time I will become more comfortable with my process of arranging panels, just as I am becoming more comfortable with my process of painting them. Also, as I get some positive (I hope) feedback about this new direction in my work, I will feel more self-confident about the mix of intuition and criteria that I naturally use. Meantime, I think I'll work on that master list....

mid-process jitters

The studio process has fallen into a certain rhythm this week, a kind of flexible consistency that ebbs and flows according to how well a certain hue or texture works on a given panel. Some pieces become problematic, others turn out well, and I am learning how to change and correct things I don't like. It feels good to fall into a smoother pattern of work and not be flailing around. On the other hand, I'd like to have a sense of control over the forward motion, rather than feel like I'm on a freight train barreling ahead without a sense of direction.

The 2"-cradle Gessobords that I have in stock are now all covered with at least one layer of paint. The pegboard wall on my studio almost overflows with arrangements of panels, which I change daily. As I become more confident of producing interesting panels, my anxiety is beginning to shift to the question of the montages and whether the panels will in fact go together in any meaningful way.

Thus arises another question of balance, this time of planning and spontaneity. I don't want to paint a given panel specifically for a given spot; my aim is rather to have a group of panels that I can play with until I find a series of good arrangements. On the other hand, I want the montages to show a variety of colors and textures rather than create a monochromatic and monotonous show. To the extent that I am still referring to the landscape in which I live, it is anything but monochromatic and monotonous. The photo above represents what I mean: It is a view of the northwest corner of our valley.

considering color

Back when I first started to paint, taking an evening watercolor class after my day job, I quickly became fascinated with color. Over the next few years, I explored it with my watercolor paints and became acquainted with a lot of the properties and dynamics of the different hues. When I began to use oil paint, I continued to love mixing the colors that I wanted, but a lot of what I was doing was learning to color-match, to adjust the color of my paint to that which I was observing in the landscape. Now, with this new direction of abstract work, and the color-field approach of creating blocks of color on panels to be joined later, I find myself returning to those early days and the joy of just using color for color's sake.

I pulled out some of my old reference materials, not because I care about the theory behind color so much (although it is fascinating!) but rather to serve as a guide to color mixing and to help me avoid concocting too many piles of mud. The two I am using at the moment both come from Stephen Quiller, the well-known water- and mixed-media artist and instructor based in Colorado. They are his book Color Choices, which gives wonderful guidance in color mixing, and his Quiller Wheel, a color wheel that is a great reference tool to hang on the studio wall.

Sometimes I like to be brazen with the colors I use, but more often I prefer a certain amount of subtlety. Often, the colors that I use together in a given layer are analogous hues -- different specific oranges and reds, say -- and much of the mixing I do creates neutralized colors (for example, a gold toned down with a violet). Quiller's materials get down to the specifics of these techniques, because which green mixed with which red very much affects the outcome.

As I move back into the use of color as an expressive end in itself, I am absorbed by the play of one hue against another with a given panel. A red panel is not just a flat solid red, as in some color-field work, but is rather the presentation of a variety of reds nudged up against one another, a perhaps more Rothko-ish approach. And added to that, now, is the play of one layer over another (or multiple others), which adds a whole new dimension to the process. And all of this links into the texturizing that cold wax and oil paint allow, permitting either the exposure or the partial coverage of previous layers. But more on that another day. The image above is of a panel with three layers on it, and it is the panel that led me back to my reference materials for guidance in considering color.

simple complexity

The last three days produced a series of pieces with pleasing colors and patterns filling their spaces, but none approached the effect I wanted. Worse, I couldn't see where to go with several of them. On the plus side, I now have enough pieces hanging on my studio wall that I can peruse them and assess what's happening. When I compared the pieces to my mental image of what I want, knowing that they weren't quite right, what came to mind was that they lacked density. By that I meant, that they weren't layered enough, nuanced enough, complex enough.

Then, this morning, I remembered Rebecca Crowell's description of her work as "textured color fields...built up in layers." I realized that I had been putting too much color and textural complexity into a single layer, rather than allowing multiple layers to build up. In a sense, I was getting carried away with my enthusiasm for the medium and going too far in each step. I also was allowing my old habits of representation to demand a complexity and control of composition in a single sitting.

By treating (especially the initial) layers as "textured color fields" rather than complete compositions to be enhanced later, the density I seek will gradually build up. This is, to me, a more organic and natural approach; it goes back to the letting-it-happen of abstract painting, in contrast to forcing a predetermined composition that represents something.

This simpler approach to complexity also makes it easier not to include representation in any given piece, although I could do that at some point. If I want my montages to be responses to the landscapes around me, I will have to do so primarily through color (although texture and arrangement of the pieces will also contribute), and let viewers find the reference.

time away

Five days away from home included hours of solo driving across the Colorado Plateau and down the Mogollon Rim. The spaciousness of the land helped to clear my mind of the dozens of questions I had last week. With luck, that clarity will hold now that I am home. It seems so simple: paint beautiful surfaces, and don't worry about trying to represent anything. Work went well in the studio this morning, and the 8"x8" image here is one of the results -- a good beginning for a reddish piece.

Freeing my mind from rendering an object or scene allows my focus to concentrate on nuances of color and space. Today I was watching what happened when, over a rust-colored base, I layered a couple of transparent oranges in one area, and alizarin crimson in another, and then a swath of copper metallic paint on top. The glow of the oranges contrasted beautifully with the darker crimson, and the rust provided a firm base under all. The glint from the copper, plus its basic hue, added a surface richness that was unexpected. I found myself making gestural marks that rose spontaneously from the demands of the moment. It is a new way of painting for me.

subtleties

The image here is today's modification of the image I posted yesterday. It was a moody day, weather-wise, as a Pacific storm moved across southern Utah and brought one last sting of winter. Big gray clouds, thunder, rain and snow showers, even some hail -- we saw little sunshine. That made it easier, perhaps, to explore paint and pattern, to scrape and scratch and make mistakes and correct them. It wasn't a day for bright blue skies.

It was a subtle day, and I found myself seeking subtleties in color contrast and mark making. If I am developing a language, I am not aware of it, but I was content today to just enjoy the flow. I ran into some problems working wet-into-wet, and look forward to carrying this piece further after it has dried. That brilliant red base and those bold blue lines are underlying this creamy surface. I don't know if they will reappear in the next iteration, but I'm looking forward to scratching out and reducing, as well as adding some unification though a fresh layer on top.

being literal

In a comment to her recent post "thoughts on imagery", Rebecca Crowell wrote,

I've often said that the challenge for an abstract artist is to develop an abstract language that is personal and expressive, and communicates something of feeling, memory, idea or mood to the viewer. It strikes me that the "words" in that vocabulary can be purely abstract (if this really exists...the human tendency is to read imagery everywhere) or they can be referential, or a combination.

This got me thinking about language, and the fact that I have lived mostly a very verbal life (as librarian, writer, teacher). In contrast, my main occupations these days are painting and learning to play the cello, which emphasize and value the nonverbal. Yet it is still a question of language, of communication.

The limits and frustrations that I encounter in both art and music frequently relate to their nonverbal qualities. In both cases, I am acquiring the tools and skills I need, but also in both cases there are expressive, perhaps intuitive, aspects that I glimpse but do not speak, at least not fluently. In both cases, it is that nonverbal "abstract language" that I need to develop. Feeling, memory, idea, mood: what language expresses these? What combination of color, line, mark, shape? What quality of bow on cello string, of intonation, of passage from one note to another? Two different art forms -- but maybe not so different, after all.

How to let words go and speak in other ways.... The image above is a thought suspended in mid-sentence, as yet incomplete....