Panels Against the Wall

Just some pics showing about half of the panels in the studio which are stacked against the wall. It's enjoyable to look at all of them there, waiting for something else to happen.

At one point this past fall I thought that it might be neat to remove all of the panels from the studio and install them in a gallery, just leaned up against the wall, resting on the ground as they do in my space. Than every day I would walk into the gallery and rearrange them so that different panels would be on the front of each stack. Never did it. But thought it might be a nice presentation of the work. Showcasing the volume of work more than the painting. 

One Panel, Progress From May 2010 through Feb 2011

The following images show the life of one 2x2 panel which was begun on May 19th 2010. There are several images missing from around late October when my hard drive crapped out on me and I had failed to back up a few weeks worth of in progress shots. 

This panel felt good at this stage and I considered it done for several months until it lost something for me and I felt like I had to go back into it.

This is a VERY bad image, but is the only one that documents some of the patterning/ sanding and varnishing that took place before I began painting on top of everything this past week.

In an effort to keep the documentation of the history alive the patch of pattern in the lower left hand corner has been purposefully avoided while reworking the image on top. Too forced?

For some reason I have been focused solely on this image for the past 3 days.  Not sure why I feel to urge to resolve this panel or to fit it into something, but that is what I have wanted to work on in the studio this past week. The addition of the top panel was an effort to add some surface to which I could apply paint that would more accurately describe the crop on the source photo. 

wednesday night

I've started a new project where I am collecting marks indirectly. These pages have been under the goose for a twenty four hour period. Collecting oil from the engine block and from the puddle on the cardboard on the floor.

You can see more of those on my AIB blog if you are interested

Here is the pattern piece as it is now. Sorry for the low quality image . . .

Just random marks on a piece of Masonite, it might lead to something . . . 

 Some writing on another paper texture exploration.

One of the small 'black' Masonite explorations, some detail has been added with pen. 

Week of 2-14

Ended up working a lot with texture this week. Some time was also spent shuffeling around panels and looking at a few different combinations.

Not sure I like the crop of the portrait on the top right, the division of the panel cuts it off at an odd juncture and I'm not sure what I would want to do to solve it.

The panel was laying around the studio and had been since last May so I thought I would at least dust it off and see what it could begin to work with.

pattern piece

Some more changes to the pattern piece.  

 This is at the end of the evening on Saturday. 

 There is some writing, at this point just three lines, but we'll see where it goes.

Here is a close up of the subtle texture. This is created with gloss clear spray paint over top of the green.

cune office

I switched up the artwork in my office, so I thought I'd take some shots and post them.

Weekend of 2-12

Saturday's weather was too nice and it was impossible to spend more than a few hours in the studio, Sunday I got up early and got 4 hours in before church and a few more while Caleb napped in the afternoon.

Red Portrait progress in background, on the floor are two panels that were selected to have some texture and pattern added to them.

Initial tape and a variety of house paints, polyurethane and matte medium.

Here's the resulting effect. I worked with colors that don't appeal to me because I envision covering this whole thing with gray paint and sanding back to get some hits of color from this base. The other goal is to have a more varied painting surface to paint on eventually.

I tried something new with the tape I pulled off of the panels, rather than just throwing it away I used the paint that remained on the front and applied the strip of tape, paint side down to other panels — resulting in a transfer of sorts. The thought has occurred to be before to save all of these tape fragments and use them for collage elements on these panels. But for some reason I have enforced a "no-collage" rule on myself for now and this was a way to use the tape and discarded paint. Sorry I forgot to shoot a pic of the panels with the transfered paint. I'll do that next time.

More progress on this iron painting, top panel paired with a new bottom, just to look at different color. 

Simply wanted to see what these to things looked like together. (I apologize this image is of really poor quality.)

Progress on Brushing Teeth, time spent blocking in large forms, attempting to accurately describe the  proportions, especially of the hand holding the brush.  

Brushing Teeth

Started a new image last night, based on a photograph taken of Allison brushing her teeth while holding Caleb.

Initial "blank" canvass consisting of  some textured panels as well as new ones. It's hard to see it from the distance this photo was taken, but both panels are heavily textured, the one on the top right more so than the larger one to it's left. I am hoping that this texture provides some interesting occurances when I begin to render on top of them. 

Most of the representational stuff in the studio has either been single portraits or the tea pots and irons. So this arrangement of figures was selected because it will prove to be more of a challenge relating the forms to one another as well as balancing proportions. 

As I have been looking at the work in the studio here are some thoughts I have been getting from it lately:

 

TIME

1) Time  documented by applying paint to the panels — a document of their own creation/each stroke, drip accumulating over days/weeks/months/years. Time is documented and remembered because these panels came to be over time.

2)  Time documented through the recording of  life  through the use of rendered images, (Allison brushing teeth, parents, family, objects of meaning, etc). Time is documented and remembered through the recording of these things

SPACE

Space comes into play because both types of time documentation initially occupy their own space. Which later are reworked to share space and then finally are reassembled and combined  into a new image/painting by arranging panels into a composition. Essentially when panels are combined different spaces are being combined and new space is carved out. 

MEMORY

Memory in our minds works as I have been told is not like recalling a file from a filing cabinet with all of the needed information in a single folder, but more like a complex matrix or database where different components of a single memory are pulled from a variety of sources/spaces and then reassembled into the desired occurrence or memory. I am beginning to see these panels as being similar to those spaces containing  chucks of memory data/documents of time that are recalled or combined to form a memory or thought, which in my efforts results in a visual composition.

I know this sounds a bit like b.s. right now, but I think that there is something in this mix of time/space/memory that was not a thought I chose to put behind the work but rather the thoughts I am getting from doing it and looking at it. That feels honest. To be truthful I almost don't like typing this stuff out because the vague connections about it in my mind sound so much stronger without having to articulate them in concrete terms. But I suppose that's okay. For now the rambeling above is simply a way for me to attempt to explain something I don't really understand at the present moment. 

Perhaps I like it more because I don't understand it.