White, from 8/5/10

Break off my crown, inside your living room

4 x 6 inches

artist stretched canvas, plexiglas, mirror,

magnolia twig, acrylic and latex paint

Careful What You Wish For

1 x 1 inch

stretch artist canvas, plaster cast (artist left ring finger), latex paint

I have been steadily moving away from both intentional painting with a brush, and the use of a wide range of color. I have become more inclined to dip things in paint and let them dry to a canvas, or apply "ready-made" things (even things I've made in the past) to canvases. I feel the need to make seemingly clean, pure looking paintings...I'm not sure what it means yet, but I think I want simple things in my life. Simple yet intriguing. Still, I am not opposed to using lots of color if I feel like it would work. Nor am I opposed to using the things I put on the canvas to trigger a response.

Using color sparingly makes it feel more important to me. Of course the meaning or association of the one color I usually pick tends to convey intense, varying emotions. The color is red; no surprise there. I don't think my intention is to make it feel violent or passionate, but I think I am drawn to the contrast of red and white - it's like black and white to me. But black and white feels contrived or too starch. Maybe I should try a black and white painting... By the way, I don't really like pink. I think.

I am also coming back to small. Miniature environments. I know it's because of my current work space, but we'll see what happens upon my move in at PAFA. I think my more recent paintings (since Arcadia) have been growing more environment-like, similar to drawings and creations I would make when I was a child. The use of minimal applied objects, and the lack of color (specifically in "my crown") really lets my imagination run wild, connecting dots that may or may not be there. Thinking about "my crown" now, there is only one white thing on the painting; the magnolia branch. The mirror has potential to pick up light and color and facial features, and the plexiglas is clear, letting us see the white paint that adheres it to the canvas. So is it the white I like? Or the bizarre and somewhat opposite quality of the pair (mirror versus plexiglas)?

My decision on where to place the objects in "my crown" came with a few more considerations. I moved things around a little more than "Wish". I think in "Wish" I intended the two to be shown together and for them to converse with each other. While in "my crown" I came to the composition after a lot of rearranging. I stacked both vertically on the canvas (magnolia above plexiglas) and literally stacked on top of one another (mirror tucked behind magnolia). I think I did this in reference to and alter of some sort, or a fire place, or some other central vertical structor. Oh, and I love that all the paintings have elements of broken cross sections (the edge of the fingers, and the magnolia branch sticking out), and that the viewer can very easily see both. While all three paintings are somewhat simple, they don't lack detail. At all.

Lastly, I honestly don't like reading about other peoples work, and I almost feel like a fake putting all these reflections out there. I guess I am just practicing being in the art world again, which of course is being a Jedi Master Bullshitter.