So, What About these Paintings? 7th Iteration Series.

I’m going to share some ideas about my works which hopefully help, vs. confuse, the viewer. It won’t tell you what to think but at least you’ll have a sense of how they were born.

The first thought today for me is titles about titles. I have less difficulty with titles than I do with signatures. Titles can be limiting though while signatures can look like you just branded a cow. I’ve decided that I need to sign most of my paintings, so I’m just learning to deal with it. The titles? That’s another story. For this series I kept the title vague with a nod to the number. It’s that spiritual idea about words pointing in the direction of the moon. It leaves a lot of space to wander in between.

I’m just going to touch on the 7th Iteration series here. These acrylic on canvas pieces are all derived from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Does it matter to me if you know the music or if the paintings evoke the symphony itself? Not really. One thing I’ve learned, which can be really helpful in abstract painting, is to have a prompt. In this case, it was the 7th and the horn passages in the first movement. By the time I hit the 7th Iteration 2, I was playing the full symphony top to bottom while I painted. So while I started with gestures that I felt matched that horn line, I moved into layers and building feelings about the piece from the bottom up.

As I worked through all three, I found myself really liking that idea of building the paintings with layering. Beethoven is more of a motif kind of guy anyway, so I think this fits. How do you take something that is heard through time in a linear way and compact it into a painting? This is one approach. Just stack it! Did the paintings evolve as I went? Absolutely. So these are more process paintings than anything. It is a process of searching, as one teacher said, until you say “Oh, there it is,” as if the piece was out there already, just waiting to be found.

These paintings also have a sense of looking down on the earth from an airplane, something I really enjoy. A couple who saw these three at the Art Works opening saw water and flowers. I can see that. And that’s where a title can limit imagination. If anything, I hope my abstracts encourage imagining, traveling through the colors, textures and spaces.

If I’m every reincarnated as a horn player, it’d be specifically to play this piece. Maybe that’s not enough reason to chose a career, but I can see how it could get you hooked.