Sunday, September 30, 2007

Over My Dead Body



Yup, I've had another long break from painting, but tomorrow I'm baaaack. Here's hoping I kick off those sideways heels a little earlier this time around.

The more I look at this painting "Passage," the more it looks to me like it's about this whole process of stepping back to let a painting happen, even if it's over my own dead body.

Although "Passage" isn't the painting I was writing about in my "Doing It the Hard Way" post, when I completed this one a couple of days later, it too looked like parts of it were opening up to reveal the rest. In this case, the top and the bottom were opening up to reveal the middle.

And then yesterday---someone in the gallery looked at this itty bitty painting--it's 12" square-- and said, "It looks like it's being stretched open." Music to my masochistic ears.

So...now it's...baaaaaaack to the raaaaaaack...

9 comments:

Lee said...

San, this is an interesting painting and an exercise in imagery for me. Thank you for sharing it. The orange at the bottom held my attention. So did the red at the top. Red has long been my favorite color and yours is rich and varied in hue, like a red silk shirt. The orange kept holding my attention because it looks like the edge of a sweater to me, fuzzy yarn and twisted edge. The entire painting reminds me of layers of cloth. I like the textures. Maybe layered clothing which with a stretch of the body spreads apart to show the indigo T-shirt underneath?

My week is going better. I have 2 sets of lesson plans written and am getting ready to start on a 3rd set. How goes yours?

Hope!
Lee

San said...

Love your textile take on the painting, Lee! What a beautiful description--thank you for looking closely.

Glad to hear you're accumulating a stash of lesson plans. Would like to be a fly on the wall in your classroom to see what I might learn. Plenty I'd bet.

Ironically, after joking about being back to the rack on the blog, I twisted my back yesterday. (Be careful what you blog about, you just might get it.) Today, it is so much better--I can walk upright and everything--and I am back to my orange crayon self. For better or worse. Thanks for asking.

Lee said...

Oohh, ouch! I'll be praying for the continued recovery of your back.

You're very welcome for the description. I was wondering just what the difference is when a painting is viewed online as opposed to seeing it face to face. Probably texture? Maybe some subtle shadows? Have you observed differences of any significance?

I take on two subjects (Writing and Spelling). I will start writing by teaching them use of adjectives. I've got some old Life Magazine photos. We'll explore the descriptive side of words and see what they come up with.

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

San said...

Good morning, Lee. Thanks much for the prayers. The back is MUCH better. Yesterday I was able to spend hours standing at the easel.

How much is lost in a photo of a painting? Less in a smallish painting such as this. Much more in a larger painting. A 10-inch image of a 4-foot painting loses a lot of detail, and you're right--texture seems to disappear.

I'm looking out the window at the eastern sky. The sunrise has turned the clouds delicate and pink. It will be a beautiful day! I'm off to meet a friend for coffee, then it's back to painting.

HAVE FUN, you and the class, with words.

Anonymous said...

San, "Passage" is a beautiful painting. Great color, texture, and form. At twelve inches square, it evokes movement in several directions--as if the scraped lines on the canvas are shooting off into space. It's currently one of my favorite art pieces in the gallery.

And of course you are my favorite artist. You're so, well, ah, genuinely soft-skinned.

WBTT

San said...

And WBTT, you are MY favorite artist. Your mechanical orientation is legendary.

murat11 said...

San: Thanks for your visit over to the MuratFest. I love these paintings of yours. About fifteen years ago, I lost my ability to be arrested by strictly representational paintings. In my own bizarre sort of way, non-rep paintings seem, to me, more real: they hold me (my wife Tina's portraits of sacred women are an exception).

Question about those offspring: are they named after Flannery O'Connor and Oakley Hall? I'd bet my last sushi about Flan; not so sure about Oakley. I've read a bit of OH, after I found out that Thomas Pynchon was a big early fan of his; you see the influence in TP's latest Against The Day.

Peace to you up in lovely Santa Fe.

San said...

Thanks, Murat11. I know what you mean about non-representational art seeming "real." When it works--for the maker or the viewer--it taps into the world on an energetic level, the pulsing spaces between things. It can be very emotional. And oddly, what the superrealists did in the Sixties and Seventies felt very abstract, in the sense of being "taken out" of the world, rather cold and calculating. Of course, that was their intention.

You're right with regard to both offspring--Flannery O'Connor and Oakley Hall are the namesakes. You get to keep your sushi. Bennie aka Wild Bill Tick Tock just finished "Against the Day." I will ask him if he saw an Oakley Hall influence. That's pretty interesting.

Flannery said...

Wow, that murat11 guessed my namesake is somewhat impressive, though I find it's a more common guess among the University crowd. But that he guessed Oakley's simply floors me.