New Work

My studio has basically 2 rooms. One is where I work and the other serves as a gallery/storage area for finished work. As I finish work, I title, catalogue, and wire paintings. I also paint or prepare the sides so they are ready to hang. The paintings and unframed drawings then cross the threshold from the work area to the finished area. When I near the completion of a body of new work, it is often a struggle to complete the last few. They are the ones that have given me trouble, sometimes for months or years. Occasionally I will declare a work an albatross and either I paint over it or hide it in the closet. (One of these days I will assemble all the albatrosses together for a show) Still, my ultimate goal is to clear the work area. This Spring I finished a body of work, which includes roughly 150 drawings and paintings, ranging in size from postage stamp and post card sized drawings to a number of larger paintings with dimensions in the 3 to 6 foot range. It represents roughly 2 years of work. I am then left with an empty space to start fresh. The journey starts slow. I don't necessarily abandon themes or techniques. During this early phase, I experiment and seek variations of color, composition, and process. Gradually a new grouping or body emerges. It is not important initially to finish anything, rather, I am establishing trends, relationships, harmonies, and transitions. This cycle of creation, like seasons changing has fostered the harvesting of inspiration. There are infinite variations of each motif to be explored, and the studio is like a greenhouse calibrated to harness creative ideas and bring them to fruition. The first image shows images from the body of work I just finished, and the second image shows work that I have started in recent weeks.