And the Seasons, They Go Round and Round
On my nightstand:
It is, you see,
a matter of perspective.
The fact doesn’t change.
It’s the looking that changes.
Once you see, you realize
truth always was
just on the other side
of a tissue-paper wall,
waiting for a rupture,
a flame.
Even spiritual seekers
(supposed to “know better”)
may find it hard to believe
they already are
what they seek.
Jan Frazier, The Freedom of Being; At Ease With What Is
On my easel:
Daylight taps me on the shoulder earlier each morning, lingers longer into early evening. Birds repopulate the yard. Pruned winter-bare forsythia sprigs, placed in a water-filled vase indoors dazzle me with bright yellow blossoms chased by lush greenery.
My heart seems to be opening to its own new season, breaking out of a confinement into a here and now with spunk for experimentation.
I take my tall skinny canvas and cover it with leftover latex door paint, the wonderful “rhubarb” color we used when we replaced our front door a couple of years ago. I don’t foresee that this orange-red will be visible in the finished painting but I’m curious about starting with it as the underpainting. I like that in the end, in its place at the top of the stairs, this painting will be in conversation with the front door at the bottom of the stairs and the friendly similarly-hued accent rug in the 2nd-storey Bailey-Road-Bedroom just inches away.
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12 responses to “And the Seasons, They Go Round and Round”
The substrate is definitely out of my wheelhouse—first time I’ve ever worked on a 12 x 36″ canvas!
I wasn’t expecting the the rhubarb paint to be translucent, and I was pleased to have some of the strong black marks show through. Thanks for your thoughts about scraping and or scrubbing to keep some of that history as I continue painting.
Powerful quote! Thank you.
And that rhubarb red! it’s fabulous. I remember your door. I know several artists who always underpaint in red! As a matter of fact, I heard about you from an artist who paints red: Holly Lombardo.
And…one of my favorite strategies when decorating and putting a room, or a home, together is wanting things to talk to each other. They don’t have to share everything in common and be matchy matchy…but just give a nod to something nearby. It gives a space energy and cohesion.
This piece, and this piece in your home, is going to start a wonderful conversation. I can’t wait to see what comes next.
And, by the way, I am hoping for a touch of the rhubarb red to come through. It’s voice is so beautiful.
MaryAnn, Holly’s process is precisely what prompted me to venture on this particular path of experimentation, and what better red than my rhubarb!
Thank you for so beautifully articulating that concept of artistic conversation. Yes, yes, yes to what you wrote!
I, too, am hoping to have rhubarb’s voice to come through in the end with this piece but I have NO idea how I’ll go about that.
What a wonderful way to make things match – even though maybe only tiny bits of it will be visible in the end!
As a beginning artist I would have had no awareness of the idea of setting up a conversation between artistic elements in a painting or in a room or home, but now here I am happily experimenting with such things. It’s fun, isn’t it, to think that only tiny bits of that rhubarb underpainting might be present in the end, but that they’ll still play a role.
Lola, sometimes I second guess my inclination to post one element of process at a time. I like having the record for myself, but I don’t always feel confident about the interest of others. Guess my instincts are on the right track—everyone is loving this unexpected and perhaps ultimately irrelevant color. Woo hoo! Thanks for your vote!!!
Thank you for holding “spunk” as my middle name, Sheila!
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