I’ve been scanning some slides of old work, putting them into a more accessible digital form. It’s been interesting, seeing a lot of the older work, much I haven’t seen in many years. It’s enlightening to see the changes in the work and inspiring when I come across pieces where I remember what I was going for in the painting, the concept behind the work. Sometimes it’s an idea that I’ve put aside at that time, to be used later but end up completely forgetting. Seeing them anew brings that idea back to life but years later with a different base of knowledge to work with it.
Other times I come across pieces that I remember so well for the feeling they produced while painting them and the feeling of the final product. This is one such piece, called Neighbors, that is from about 14 years back. It’s a painting that I remember painting so well. It was at a time when I was still forming a lot of the technique that became staples of my work and this piece seemed to come together so well. There was something very delicate in the way I painted this, a lighter touch with the brush. I don’t know if it’s visible but I feel it and remember it.
There’s also a certain nostalgic feel to this piece that I remember very well. The location of this scene is not representative of any place I’ve known but strikes a very reactive chord within me as though it is an icon that is representative of something important within me but is there without my knowledge, laying dormant.
It’s an unusual, more complex reaction to a simple, straightforward painting than I would expect. It makes me wonder what it is that makes me react this way and if this is the same emotional trigger that makes certain pieces raise similar reactions in other people. What is this intangible?
I’ll have to think on that for a while…
Redtree Times 