About Structure

I am totally engrossed in the project I am working on now in my studio. While I like writing this blog, it is hard for me today. To stay focused where my interest is, I will write about it.

This project is the one I spoke of in the blog post About Yaddo; I am finishing some pieces started more than twenty years ago. I spent several days making a working studio of what had become a kind of exhibition space for my December open studio event. I then sorted these twenty-seven 26” x 20” promising beginnings into cohesive groups and hung them to look carefully at what I had.  In the week just past I added collage elements to all of the originally painted pieces. What comes next is some illumination which is about brightening the lights and deepening the dark areas. And then, and this is most important, providing these pieces with some structure; I don’t like “floaty” elements in my work. 

That leads me to contemplate the need for structure in my life. Putting it into a painting, which I do by means of lines which anchor the separate elements into a two-dimensional asymmetrical network, leads to an image in which the separate elements are connected and supported. The structure of my days, my beloved routine, brings a sense of calm. If my quest for inner and outer peace is always a challenge, I can make it  happen in my work. A significant blessing.

The image above is a partial view of these works in progress. I have coated them with a transparent medium which is receptive to pencil and pastel and these will be the final materials used on what will have to be called “mixed media” works. They started with acrylic paint, were given some collage components and now will be polished with line and light. Julia Childs, before she entered into health consciousness, often gave her recipes a final embellishment of heavy cream or butter. I will do something similar here.