Sunday, August 16, 2009

At last, I have come to an insight as to my preference for abstract art.

With realistic art, you will have consensus from viewers what is the subject of the work (e.g. "a girl"). You might get some variation on the emotive qualities, sad, or pensive, whatever. But even that would be just a few variables.

With abstract art, you can get as many various responses as there are viewers. In other words, to answer the question "What is it?" abstract art tells about the person seeing it and the relationship that person holds with the forms in front of him or her.

The exponential number of responses is what I love about abstract art. Instead of being a piece of work about something, it is possible to be everything, or...

My favorite riddle:

What is greater than God?
What is meaner than the devil?
Rich men want it.
Poor men have it.
If you eat it, you'll die.

So, rather than painting something, I paint pure potential, or a whole lot of nothing.

Saturday, January 03, 2009


Above: The painting that is a stretch for me. I hid it (facing away from public view in a dark corner) until I was ready to approach it again. I think I'll title it "al dante". I still don't like it, but that may only mean it's not done yet. Or it wasn't one I did for me. Who knows?



After a screen printing class one weekend, I dragged a print across canvas from the screen, and am now building a cliche Hawaii painting out of it.



This image is a bit faded from the actual colors: brilliant jewel tones. Title "Tales from the Alhambra" after whose-it's book. I'll get a better photo of it when I put on the finishing touches.


Titled "Sense and Dollars" in this one I'm exploring the idea of a recession, fears of scarcity, and the idea that life is full of much more than money... and how much easier money can make things.



"Sense and Dollars" again, with an untitled work that is in progress.



A freshly started canvas, to show how I begin. This is "Talk Story". I will next put down glazes of color/tone to cover the canvas and then go back into the original sketched idea and elaborate on it. The tiny green canvas is another one I'm playing with, having first glazed it and then starting to doodle afterwards.