This is a new painting that I have been working on recently. It’s a 24″ by 24″ canvas that has a working title of October Sky. It has nothing to do with the movie of that title — the one about how Homer Hickam, the son of a West Virginia coal miner. overcame long odds to become a rocket scientist. I’m not fully sure of the reason for the title except that during the time I was painting this the sky was gray and rainy. The title just seemed to emotionally fall to this piece but that might change as I live with it.
And it’s a piece that I like living with right now.
It’s darker tones and clashing, interweaving lines satisfy something in me at this time. There’s part of me that feels that I need to bring more light into it but I find myself wondering if that is just a remnant of my past experience with my dark work from the aftermath of 9/11 that was not as well received as my lighter and more brightly colored work of that time. It was my first experience working on a dark base and it took time for me to develop the style I use now where I create more color and light on the surface, far more than was on those earlier pieces.
So I have become accustomed to working past stages where the darkness is still strong in my work, sometimes when I am deeply drawn tot he darker aspects of the work.
And this is one such piece. Looking at it now, I think it might be diminished by going too much further into the light. But that is at just this moment and might change. This is one of those pieces that require deliberation, time to ponder the painting’s real point of existence and feeling. Some pieces announce themselves before the last strokes are even considered and others are more ambiguous.
And it is this ambiguity that I think gives this piece its strength. It doesn’t announce itself as one thing.
And I like that.
I’m going to continue looking at this for a while, just taking it in for what it is in the moment.
Redtree Times 