December 22nd -- Joan and I are ironing out the kinks

Today's painting is a bit experimental - fitting for the end of chapter.  Somewhere near the beginning of this project curator Scott Propeack saw the photo of one of my little paintings in perspective and mentioned that he would like a painting of a painting in that view.  For this last painting, I took a segment of Joan Miró's painting, "Catalan Landscape, 1924" and put it in perspective, a thought triggered by Scott's comment. 

Miro once said,  "Every idea has to develop in my unconscious, and sometimes it takes years... The starting point is absolutely irrational, sudden and unconscious: I start off blindly..."  I love this quote because, although I don't feel like I start out blindly, I don't start with a plan -- I start with a whole bunch of things colliding in my brain.  It is when an exciting collision happens that I start a painting -- and then more collisions happen and the painting changes, then the painting is finished and sometimes even more collisions happen, and its meaning develops further.  I chose Miró to pair with the iron because of his flattened imagery.  It's just my own quirky sense of humor -- it was initially to be called  "Oh Joan, I'm so sorry I flattened your painting!" This made me giddy. 

My chosen titled (decided last night) ended up being more ironic than you can imagine, because for the first time in this entire process, I repainted a whole painting from a blank slate (at 5 am this morning)... I needed to iron out the kinks.  People always ask when you know a painting is finished, and I always say, "when it can hang on my wall for a few weeks, and I don't touch it.  A painting a day doesn't give you quite as much time to consider the finished piece... but when something wakes up at 5am (and you don't need to be up til 8am)... you also know it isn't finished. 

It is just my luck that the painting I chose and the iron are from roughly the same time period.  This Coleman gas iron was from the 1930s and an experiment as well.  It didn't really catch on, but they look really cool.  For me this little piece... the entire endeavor... it's all about experimentation, all about pushing to do something new.  For those following this little saga, this is the last painting for sale... there will be the "give away" painting posted on the 23rd, and then on the 24th, I will post the painting that I made with every intention of selling but found that I couldn't let go.  And then... that is the end of these little guys until this time next year (I think-- I can't plan that far in advance!).  I can however let you know that I have a 3-person exhibit opening January 9th at Studio Hart in Buffalo!

Here is the painting... "Joan and I are ironing out the kinks"

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Joan Miró's painting Catalan Landscape, 1924

 
 
 



And here is my show announcement!  The opening is January 9th, 6 - 9pm.