Less is More

     As we embark upon our journey for process, we find it difficult to get over the ideals that have been laid before us. It has taken me 20 years to discover how I want to paint and why. When I look at a painting, it has to interest me more than just the subject matter, something in the way the paint has been laid down needs to pull me in, liked getting sucked into another dimension. The paint needs to tell the story of a journey it has taken to get where it is, and I find that when I can strip bare the structure and see the foundation I find my eyes more visually entertained. While I can pet the surface just as good as any other artist, for me, when I do that, the paint becomes flat and flattens the image. A brushstroke, a line, something lost, something found a discovery, that is where the visual language lies. The subject matter, while important for the viewer, has almost little value once you discover a process that you enjoy. Not to say that subject matter isn't important, but think about how much more you will love to work on that subject matter when you enjoy how you do something. For so long I have wanted to paint poignant and significant subject matter that spoke so deeply to the metaphor that only those who think the same way I do would get it.
      One day last year as I helped a friend do some groundwork for his paintings and not only saw but experienced his process, something happened inside of me. I found myself having more fun than I ever did. I found that parts of his process made it so it didn't even matter what we were putting on the board, it was simply the pure satisfaction of creating. I started to evaluate all the techniques I had enjoyed, and payed attention to the ones I kept revisiting and experimenting with when I would work from a live model. I found that my works from live models were more interesting for me visually than the ones that I worked so hard to have them be symbolic. While I enjoy those on a metaphysical basis, I struggle to create them.

     When I looked at my experimental pieces I noticed that I was struggling to figure out how to combine multiple techniques, elements, and material. When I fist decided to take this experiment to a bigger scale and actually apply it to my paint, my first thought was I needed to pick a subject that I couldn't worry about visually, or I would expect too much perfection.
      The sparrow has been my dearest friend these past few years, and I connect with it on a spiritual and somewhat personal level. It is small, quiet, insignificant in the way of something people notice (unless you're a bird watcher). But I found that picking this simple subject matter would allow me to discover this process that was fighting to come out. Not really realizing at the time how much the process and the sparrow have in common.
      The first few paintings I struggled to balance between keeping the layers fresh and overpainting the last layer, I started to push the image more abstract but wasn't happy so  pulled it back into reality by allowing the under layers to work for me and painting very little on the final layer. The first time I poured the epoxy resin was so exciting and OH what magical things happened in the painting that I couldn't see without the resin! I can't even capture it in photography. The resin gives the appearance of suspended layers of iridescence that shimmer in the light, deepening each layer.
      Satisfied with the process and the way it is evolving I finally have a body of work that not only is consistent but extremely fun to create. It is still meaningful, not on the same level as the big deep metaphysical metaphor, but the simple, quiet, small and unnoticed sparrow, which brings me joy!