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....

now what?

Can one get too attached to a pleasing aspect of a painting? Why is there fear in touching an existing section that seems "right"? More basically, what does one do when one doesn't know what to do next?

These are the questions plaguing me today. Take last Friday's image, for example. This is NOT a finished painting, yet I look at it and think, now what?

Another example: I did paint over a 6"x6" that I decided was too tritely representational. Then I painted over that. Then again. Now it is a mess, has no focus, no attraction. My naive assumption, that by "messing it up" it would come right somehow, almost on its own, was obviously wrong. I'll let it sit, then perhaps scrape it down and start a different painting on the support.

Why do some paintings just flow and emerge, while others proceed in fits and starts and stay hidden under a gauze of fog? How many paintings have I begun and ended up throwing away because I couldn't see where to go with them?

Perhaps it is a question of bringing a certain attitude to the easel (well, tabletop). There may be a balance between being too precious and being too slapstick. One must pay attention to what is happening to the painting as each move is made, yet must also keep a distance and objectivity.

Instead of fearing to ruin something, I can ask, "how can I enhance this wonderful passage?" Also, perhaps, I can keep a sense of forward motion with a painting until it comes to rest on its own, with a sense of completion.

beautiful space

Musing on the surfaces that I created on Friday, I remembered a quote I encountered years ago while studying the life and works of Georgia O'Keeffe. Describing the influence of Arthur Wesley Dow on her own development , O´Keeffe famously spoke of his "one dominating idea: to fill a space in a beautiful way…."

O'Keeffe was referring to the freedom that Dow's teaching gave her to leave realism behind and explore her own personal expression using line, color, and notan to create beauty on the painting surface. The painting becomes not a window through which reality is viewed (I always think of those huge, realistic paintings of the Grand Canyon), but rather a surface that is itself beautiful and that provides a different kind of window, into the artist's inner vision.

Here is another push-pull for me, not between realism and abstraction, but between painting-as-window and painting-as-object. I have, on occasion, produced a painting that -- well, glows. That is, there is an immediate attraction to the surface of the painting itself. It calls attention from across the room. In a way, the painting as an object becomes the focus. I like this quality. The challenge, in creating such works, is to not forget the "window" concept, to not become content with just the surface but to seek a deeper meaning so that there is an inner vision to be detected.

In moving into abstraction, I think I need to focus on surface beauty for a while, in order to liberate myself from the other window, the representational. I do believe that creating even a seemingly random surface reveals something of what is in me: How can it not? Yet I am not ready to leave all representation behind. I do have a reference for my work beyond the "inner self" that presumably is always represented, and that is the country around me that is my inspiration and that grounds me. Rebecca Crowell's discussion of "referential images" that sometimes blend with pure abstraction in her work (see, for example, her blog post of November 29, 2007 or her post on April 21, 2006) is very useful in thinking about this. A problem for me has always been that, in pursuing the representation of a scene, I lose the beauty of the painting itself. Nice picture, boring painting (in terms of surface). If I can focus on the beauty of the space I am filling, limiting any imagery to only the referential as it serves that beauty, I may have a way out of that particular dilemma. So, my mantra for the week: reference rather than representation. But especially: beauty-filled space.

tgif

In contrast to yesterday, this morning I played with color relationships and methods of paint application using cold wax. I rolled, smoothed, scraped, marked, blended, scratched, and sanded. I put new layers on top of old, exposed old layers under the new, rubbed the two together. I now have ten boards in various stages of development, none with any visible representational message. Some are along the red/rose/rust spectrum, others are in the blue/green, and still others explore creamy earthtones.

After a joyful morning of this, and a break for lunch and cello practice, I found myself at a dead end, without enough energy to even evaluate what I had accomplished. So I prepped another eight boards with blue tape on the wooden cradles, cleaned up the studio, made plans for my next paint session, and ended the day. Two or three of the pieces I worked on this morning are stimulating enough to provide examples for later. The image above is of one of them, although the photo did not turn out well. Others are not so far along, and I can't sense where they are going, but I am going to have faith that they will develop in future sessions. If not, I can always scrape them off and start over!