4:49 PM: this morning was trail walk morning....once every 2-3 mornings.the only thing predictable about our walks is that they are always gorgeous and inspiring. i try to make at least one drawing each time in my tiny black moleskine notebook, which is always in my breast pocket.
over time, these little drawings, together with the larger gouache and oil studies i've been making at the creek for years, are informing-fueling my new late summer series of collage/paintings. these new paintings are a natural vehicle for the expression of my passion for the landscape and for biomorphic forms in general. rather late in life, i'm finding my note. developing my vocabulary. rocks like these have been there every time we walk up the trail, over many years. it's only now that i'm paying close attention to details like the ones you see here.
patterns such as these have been present and available on the trail for eons. i never really noticed them until i began experimenting with collaged and painted shapes clearly and intentionally drawn from rocks/water/trees. are dead trees really dead? are rocks living or dead? questions beside the point, really. the point is, they are all equally reflections of a larger order, which is true as well for our tiny, primitive brains. when we manage to mimic or evoke patterns like the ones you see here on this rock, we think we've created something so special. and perhaps we have.
enough of that! this afternoon i re-stretched turtle island once again on a board covered stretcher so that i can go back into it tomorrow morning. hanging on my studio wall since it was completed, it just wasn't cutting it. so tomorrow morning i'll launch in and see what happens.
BELOW is what it looks like currently. it was completed august 27, and i must admit, it reproduces pretty well in this image you're looking at. in person however, it just doesn't hold up next to, for example, red orange, on the right,which was completed september 4th. notice, in contrast with turtle island, how it has it's own logic of forms, space and colors. it's a discreet event, even though we can't identify exactly what these shapes and the space surrounding them represent. but we're inclined, or at least i'm inclined, to make stuff up. oh, that's definitely a breast said one studio visitor, pointing to the semi circular form in the lower center. and so on. that's the idea! you make stuff up about these forms precisely because they are indirectly based upon natural forms: rocks, water, trees. ever looked at a rock that reminded you of a hawk? Or a tree bark that reminded you strongly of a rhino's hide?