Redtree Times

Jason Thieves the Golden Fleece (May, 1994)

It is a fact that we tribes of suffering men never plant our feet firmly upon the path of joy, but there is ever some bitter pain to keep company with our delight.

–Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica (3rd century BC)

For this week’s A Look Back, we’re going to focus on a small group of experimental pieces. They came at a time when I was trying a lot of new things that gave me insights into how different paints reacted and moved on the painting surface as well as how to apply paint in different ways.

I remember this time as being very exciting for me. My mind was in overdrive and ideas were firing out of it at a dizzying pace. The problem with this was that it was unfocused. Instead of being like a fireworks display lighting up the sky, it was more like a big bag of fireworks being shoved into a steel 55-gallon drum then being set ablaze. Loud, but no direction or flow.

But it was what it was and being so, I took what I could from the explosions and bursts that rattled around and emerged from the steel drum that was my mind.

At one point, I was experimenting with moving paint on the surface with a simple drinking straw. Placing a drop in one spot, I would direct it by blowing through the straw. I loved the tendrils of paint it created, long and thinning as they progressed. If I changed the direction of my blowing, it created a lovely organic bend that mimicked the branch of a tree. I also applied thin watercolor washes as I normally would as well as playing with this same thinned watercolor in an atomizer to create an interesting background texture.

It was all abstract in nature. There was no intention, nothing that I was trying to represent. These pieces acted more like Rorschach tests, where one gives their first impression of random ink blots. I have vague memories of a board game we had from the 1960’s that incorporated these inkblots. I don’t remember us actually playing the game, just looking at the blots and trying to figure out what we were seeing in them.

As for these pieces, I wouldn’t even consider what they might be until they were what I felt was complete. And determining this finish point was completely intuitive. If all the elements and colors felt whole and unified, then I thought it was done.

I only did a handful of these pieces at the time. Though I enjoyed painting them and felt some excitement in the finished pieces, I didn’t feel I could mentally commit to the process in any meaningful way over the long term.

It didn’t feel like a found voice. I was still searching for that and while I didn’t know what it would be, I knew that I would recognize immediately when I came across it. And I was right, but that’s another story.

This particular piece intrigued me from the minute I felt it was done. I immediately saw a character with something tucked under their arm running towards some destination represented by the blue ball and the bit of a swirl around it. That looked like some form of destiny to me.

Though the item under its arm appeared mainly red there was bit of gold that I instantly saw as the golden fleeced ram stolen by Jason in order to fulfill his quest in the Greek myths. I don’t know why exactly why that came to mind. Do we ever truly know why we think many things? If we did know why, couldn’t we do a better job at thinking?

Now, you might see it as something completely different, though I have probably given you too much mental direction at this point, which I probably should not have done. But give me a break– I’m an artist, not a psychoanalyst.

I always particularly enjoy coming across this small experimental group. I still get a kick out of them that makes me wonder how things would have went if I had felt more committed to this style at the time, if I would have been able to develop this voice in a way that would connect with others. Would it have led to the same sort of life that I was later fortunate to find? Maybe it would have led to an even better one?

I kind of doubt it. If I had went that way, I’d probably right now be the guy collecting shopping carts in the Walmart parking lot. That’s not a knock on that job. There have been many points along the way when I have envied that guy. Hell, I have been that guy before.

And if not for inkblots, fireworks in a steel drum, and falling ladders, I might still be that guy.

Funny how that works.