Maritza Ruiz-Kim

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Within, the Project: Surface Treatments

(Seriously, I need to update here a couple times a week. That's my plan anyway. Thanks for your patience as I warm up to this project. Here is my continuing record of the process of the creation of this project, from concept time, to time of sale. If anyone buys this. Following is week #3.)The most I have done for this project this week has been all in thought... . I've got questions I'm mulling over & materials I'm considering.Will there be any connection on the surface of the paintings to what's #within– the private notions that I'll bury into the work? I've thought about using the title or imagery to allude to what is #within each piece, but lately what seems so much more appealing is to have no connection whatsoever. My experiences of late seem to be highlighting the comfort in carrying certain parts of life in confidence, meaning of course that I am valuing the experience of keeping things to myself. The safety of it is rather... familiar. I'm finding a space that I want to carve out and make my own, with no access for anyone but me,  it's self-contained; it's a place that isn't wired out, it's quiet, peaceful... It's a place that's my own.On my gallery crawl in San Francisco two weeks ago, I started a mental inventory of what materials/usage attractively suggest worth. Instead of looking at the content of #within for the visual language that is appropriate to what I'm working to convey, I'm really investigating what surface treatments will allow these pieces to hang in these environments. Maybe the content doesn't have to relate to the form it takes. Maybe the finished form is more about what it wants to be than what it actually is about.Is this too detached? Is that bad? Maybe not. Maybe I want #within to function by separating from the content. Maybe I just want to create work that has a chance at finding a place to hang out and sell itself for a price.Or maybe this is all about announcing to everyone that I'm not going to give away anything. I want this all for myself. You can buy it, but you can't really have it. At the end of the day, it's all still mine.Notes:a. I want this series to be on panel or stretched canvas.b. I want the size to relate to the dimensions of a piece of notebook paper (8.5" x 11"), but not that small. I love that shape.c. They may or may not hang on the wall.d. I will make about 20.e. When I get close to "done" writing out all my information, I will print it out, and permanently delete it from my computer. Maybe I will rip the print-out into tiny pieces. So, I am selecting 20 pieces of information, then I will begin making this series. I will document which piece of information is in each piece. I said that already in a previous post. But maybe I will document it in code.f. I want to use color, but I love tints and hints of color. We'll see what happens.g. what if a condition of sale is that the whole series has to be sold together & displayed together? (Maybe in that case they should be small.) Anyway, this idea is from the lecture I attended at SFMoMA with R. H. Quaytman, it was from a story she told. So, maybe I want to be sold whole, not piece by piece. If I am to be known at all, maybe I want to be all together.h. I'm still listing out all the private information I can think of from my entire life (private is being defined in varying ways.) Today I am working on things I am not talking about This Week.