Conversation 2.17 -- Recycling continued/Phase 4
My original thought coming into the studio was to add one more element that would tie everything together. Another strip of yellow dyed cheesecloth pasted over the boxes to create some kind of horizon line. I tried pinning it on. Nope. It wasn't going to work. Instead of trying to fix it by covering things up or adding more pieces I needed to step back and decide what the piece was about.
The cheesecloth -- I liked the texture it created -- and I appreciated the difficulty of working on that surface. (The night before I had considered Robert Rauschenberg's White Paintings as a possible solution.)
The colors -- I liked the primary colors, but there was too much other color and nothing was balanced. They were all fighting with each other.
The shapes -- I liked the gestural elements in the upper half as juxtaposed to the two boxes in the lower half. I also felt committed to the yellow box at the top edge.
So texture, color, and shape. My intention was to bring those out rather than covering those over. Scissors and white paint became by friend. Fine lines began to emerge. That had been something I had wanted from the start. The colors, though not in big bold blocks, began to communicate to each other. The painting started to have some life -- some playfulness -- rather than just a goldfish bowl sitting on a nonexistent table. Even with all the paint and the heavy texture I'd managed to find the light.
I see a little Miro -- and that makes me happy.