new painting technique

just keep painting over it all with white. then, instead of deep, dark separations that need to be bridged, need to be harmonized, just gauzy swirls. but there are dark irreconcilable differences in the world!! yes, but that doesn't mean that I have to keep creating them!

elegant art?

I've been struggling with a painting. I look at it and it looks very complicated. Its achieved a certain consistency. The level of detail is similar throughout. I see smoke and drama, squares, ugly chunky bits and underwater areas with wrongly colored Dr. Seuss-like swirls. I'd say its interesting to look at.

The problem is that I don't like to look at it. Its too much. Its not at a human scale. Or maybe its just that I'm tired and burnt out and don't feel like I have the perspective to see what might be elegant in it. My instinct is that its not particularly elegant.

So do I keep working on this painting? I've never bought that strongly into the express yourself school of art. More about having a dialogue with color and form. People praise art that expresses difficult emotions but manages to maintain a balance. To pull form out of chaos. Is this just our preference for the happy ending?

I guess I'm saying that this painting can be done without it having an elegant resolution. Sure, maybe I'll paint over it or throw it away some day. But for today, this painting can be done. Its an expression of where I am today. And maybe given that, I can start another that will find the elegance beyond this particular mess.

painting?

Here's a painting I've been working on.

This weekend I visited the Pollock-Krasner house, the house where Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner lived and painted. They have an audio tour where you listen to an MP3 player that guides you around and tells you stuff about their lives and the site. It produces a weird effect where you see all these people standing by themselves staring off at the trees or river or sky, just listening. Instead of thinking of the lost conversations and lost independent thought, I went with it, and it seemed a somewhat effective way to see a place. The conversations can come afterwards. I enjoyed it, but somehow didn't feel anything new about art on an emotional level. That's ok. Like falling in love, right? Its supposed to happen later?

painting

Today I added pieces of yellow and small green lines. I forgot what a diverse activity painting can be!