Unresolved Questions (+ more)
On Saturday I made a list of questions about the paintings I started last week, because what am I doing!? I ask myself things because I like charting the path forward in my work even when it's not clear what's happening. It's like I'm on a walk that seems aimless at first, but I pause and look back. I think, why did I choose that way and not the other way? I figure there probably is a preference in each direction I choose, and knowing how I got to each particular place informs my next choices for when I walk again. That way, the walk itself is fulfilling the intentions I didn't know I had. And wherever I get to, I will know where I wanted to be.
Unanswered questions:
- Will this be one painting made of 12 parts or 12 individual paintings?
- Why these shapes?
- What happened to the stone shapes with the round and round and round scratched lines?
- Where do these colors come from? From my internal experience? Are they lasting?
- Or are the colors from external life? Environmental? Just trends? Are they superficial?
- Why the hard edges vs gradients?
- Is this a language? If so, what are these paintings saying?
- Is this a place? Have I been there? Is this place real or imagined?
- Do I need these answers?
Answered questions:
- Do I love working on these? (Yes.)
- Why am I making them? (Many reasons.)
- Will I make more? (Yes.)
- Will I work in the same small panel size? (No.)
- What is the purpose of making these? (To do the making and see what happens.)
Statements:
- I'm at the beginning, not the middle or end.
- Whatever seems too obvious, I want to question.
- Whatever seems too resolved, I want to blur.
- I want hard edges in the floating space.
- I want solid forms in the formless space.
- I want a kind of balance, not just balance.
- I want harmony and contrast.
- I want the option for choices, then I want to choose.
- If there is one kind, I also want something different.
- It's not about this. It's not about that. It's what's in between both.