This is a piece from 2002 called Continuing Upward. It’s a 10″ by 16″ image on paper and is from has been called my dark work, which was painted over a dark base. Despite the name given to this work, I’ve never felt that were dark undertones in the feelings that these pieces brought up in myself. I think that this piece, for instance, feels light yet rich and uplifting.
I’ve always liked this painting a lot and particularly like the way the piece is divided by the bluish tone which continues upward from the road through the tree. There’s a real coolness in this bisecting path of color that plays well off the golden, warm tones of the land and the sky, a coolness that I associate with a movement of air like a cool refreshing breeze. It was the upward rise of this path of blue that gave me the title and gives me a sense of spiritual uplifting, an ascension from the dark base of the landscape to light. This defines this painting.
I haven’t seen this piece in many years and wonder how it stands up in person now. Over the years my surfaces have changed and it’s always interesting to see how a piece painted even only eight years looks to my current eye. Would I change anything now? Would I make different choices in the way I applied the paint or in the colors used? It’s purely an academic exercise because the piece stands as it is and always will be just that. These questions allow me to take certain things from this piece for possible use in the future. Maybe the bisecting blue swath. Maybe the golden undertones in the color. Many things.
Or I could just stop thinking for a moment and let the piece be just what it is– one allows me to enter it easily and raises my spirit immediately.
Redtree Times 