Random Combinations

Sometimes it is simply fun and exhilarating to arrange panels and discover "new" paintings or compositions from the panels already in the studio. It's as though I am surprised that a image seems to evolve out of these random assemblages. But that has been the trick, work in short bursts on a lot of stuff all the time, then survey and see what connections can be made, break those connections down, rearrange and repeat. Sometimes I really view these works as a testament to time and labor, but they are more than that. I am seeking what the more is.

To get away from the large figurative works recently begun, this 72"x72" has been arranged as a field in which I plan to execute a number of studies of the iron seen on the stand to the right. This will be a way for me to create a set of representational images that may operate as pattern, key visual or any number of visual/compositional elements in future works. I find it hard to paint an object or still life unless I have some connection to the object, the iron was owned by one of Allison's aunts who she loved, who passed away after a stroke. So one could conclude that the iron is both a portrait of Aunt Monette as well as Allison. BUT ultimately I am more interested in it as an object, an excuse to paint it and to put it into something to be judged visually, rather than conceptually. Another way of putting it is that I don't want to serve the iron by having to communicate all of the personally assigned meaning applied to it though painting it, I simply want it as an object to serve the painting's final visual success. My selection of it although needs to be on a highly personal level. It matters not if the viewer knows why or if I have a connection to any of these things or people, only that the resulting visual effect is strong. I don't want these images to be ambiguous, but I don't want them to be sentimental either. I simply need to create out of what I love and what is in my life, but saying or expressing is not important to me, what appears to be important is doing, discovering and making. Sorry for rambling.