Blog Archives
Q: Why do you call the small paintings in your “Domestic Threats” series, “Scenes?”
A: At first I didn’t know what to call them. I was looking for a word that meant “a piece of some larger whole.” Initially the word “shard” – a fragment of pottery – came to mind. However, that didn’t capture the meaning I was seeking, since my paintings have little to do with pottery.
My large “Domestic Threats” paintings are theatrical. There is substantial labor and much thought involved in their creation, so I often think of myself as a director and each image as a play.
Small “Domestic Threats” paintings are made from a portion of a photograph that I use as reference for a larger painting. For example, “Scene Thirteen: Bathroom” (above, top) is a small version of “He Urged Her to Abdicate” (above, bottom).
A “portion” of a play is a “Scene” so that’s what I finally named them. Additionally, I numbered the paintings in order of their creation and added the room where each takes place.
Comments are welcome!
Q: You often speak about the Mexican and Guatemalan figures in your paintings as serving a function analogous to actors in a repertory company. In other words, a particular figure plays a different role each time it appears in one of your pastel paintings. Would you choose a figure and show how you have painted it through the years?
And she is in the painting that is on my easel now. See my February 14 blog post.
Comments are welcome!
Pearls from artists* # 36
* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.
… don’t wait for things to change, the hour of man is now and, whether you are working at the bottom of the pile or on top, if you are a creative individual you will go on producing, come hell or high water. And this is the most you can hope to do. One has to go on believing in himself, whether recognized or not, whether heeded or not. The world may seem like hell on wheels – and we are doing our best, are we not, to make it so? – but there is always room, if only in one’s own soul, to create a spot of Paradise, crazy though it may sound.
Henry Miller in Stand Still Like the Hummingbird
Comments are welcome!