I’d like to have a whole new body of paintings to show. I don’t have the actual measurements but the space sounds like it is quite large. I’m going to need quite a few paintings. Now with a chance to show a quantity of work all at once the thought arises. Is there going to be a theme? Consistency, or at least, an evolutionary flow is needed to hold the whole show together. Thematically, I’ve been hopping all over the place for the past few years without a thought to how all the work created in that time could (or should) work together. So, where to start?
Last night I walked into my studio and decided I had to organize before anything productive can start happening. There are still remnants of printing the small woodblocks everywhere and the cumbersome coffin is filling up floor space. Where am I going to store that thing now? I haven’t had the chance (or is it courage?) to try and pull it apart so I can reprint the side panels. So it sits in the middle of the floor still in one piece.
First I set a couple of beers to chill in the window sill, cranked up some tunes and started looking for order. I moved some boxes around, put prints away, and restacked the mass of cds that multiply on any horizontal space (one of these days I’m getting me an iPod), moved and installed some shelving, and re-stacked stretchers and wood. I pulled out the stretched and gessoed 65 x 87” canvas I’ve had kicking around for a while and hung it on the wall. Finally, after some order had been restored to the space I had time to ponder what to do next while I sat and enjoyed a nearly frozen brew.
In the middle of taking a sip I happened to catch the contour of a figure appear in the play of light raking over my uneven gesso ground. Not just any figure either, I recognized this guy. He’s in one of my sketches done around the time I was working on a digital sketch for “Anhelo”. I quickly pulled some old sketchbooks off the shelf and began leafing through, all the while casting sidelong glances at the figure materializing on the “blank” canvas.
Now, I don’t normally start my work in this fashion but it has occurred from time to time. The painting “Exchange” is one of those images that just “appeared” one day as I glanced over at a blank canvas. I don’t know if I’ll end up using the idea but I figured I should at least acknowledge and follow any suggestion the universe throws at me at this point. In the end, looking through the sketchbooks for the sketch I remembered allowed me to find and reconsider about 6 old ideas from the same time period as possible compositions to work on. Not a bad start considering just a few hours before I had been racking my brain for somewhere to start.
“Salud” to the Universe. I’m strapped in. Let’s see where it goes…
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