struggles

I have been working on the first two stations since late October.  I have found that black has to be contended with, at least in this case.  I confess I'm struggling; perhaps overthinking, as I wait and discover where these paintings want to go.  Much progress today, things are beginning to click for me.

I've said many times that work comes from work.  I'm not a big believer in inspiration or those lightening strikes moments in creation.  The best ideas/revelations/observations come in the moment of doing, when the mind is hyper-focused and attuned.  I am coming to terms with just how large of an undertaking this series truly is.

I'll build two more stretcher frames this week and skin them toward the end of the week or next weekend.  With 4 in play, I think I can begin to see them differently.  I was excited to move the two together on the large wall yesterday.

Black can be academic.  It's heady and intellectual from a painterly perspective.  It shows everything and what I'm most interested in right now is eliminating everything from my paintings and simply getting to the essence.

I took a long drive yesterday, down the two lane back roads and rural highways across to Union and back.  The pleasure of driving alone in a responsive car with no destination in mind is something too many people never experience.  That oneness of man and machine is sublime; a way, like painting, that enables one to lose themselves and reach intense universal awareness.  It is a like being naked in the ocean, lying on your back and looking at the stars; as if there is no beginning or end or separation from self and sky and sea.

So that's my head space for this work.  To take away everything until I reach the point of fragility and entropy and then to somehow stop it just before that moment.  To find the where the painting is about to collapse and stop just shy.  No color, no form.  Oneness and meditation.