As artists we must pay attention to the things that we keep coming back to for they hold our greatest potential.
We can intellectualize art as much as we want and have grand reasons for why we make it, but it all starts with a small seed of intrigue - a technique, a line, a color, a notion. We come back to this seed again and again revisiting that technique, that line, that color or that notion, and slowly it grows into something.
At least that’s the way it is for me. I latch onto something and explore it over and over again until I can discovery the meaning of it. Usually it starts out as an unconscious mark to fill space in my journal or a simple thing to try something new. That is how all of my work has started - my Excavation series, my Palimpsests, my mixed media pieces. Over a great period of time I come back to the idea again and again. I play with it, cultivate it, develop it, and finally figure out what it means to me.
So, it is the same with my latest fascination. For much of the last fifteen years, I have explored imagery that has dealt with Connection - connection to self and connection with others, and the latest iteration of this Connection imagery is a web-like image that first grew out of a tree/artery image (see above) in a journal more than five years ago. Over those years, I have revisited that image, and pushed it and pulled it. I have explored a variety of materials from ink and marker to acrylic paint and paper cuts. Something about it fascinates me, and I am still trying to discovery what it exactly means to me.
It’s web-like, and tissue-like. There is a definite organic quality to it - like blood vessels or microscopic views of cells. I tend to use red a lot though I have explored black and blue as well. I know it’s about connection - connection to and with others. My Excavation series was all about the connection to myself - about digging deep and going within. The web is about the ties that bind us to others, but I’m not particularly sure how or why. But that is the fun of art - the discovery. If I knew what it all meant, what it all was to look like, I wouldn’t have to make the art. It’s all about the process of discovery.
I do know that this line of inquiry needs to grow larger in more ways than one. I do know that I want to involve creative collaborators, and I have some ideas in the works. I’ll share more soon. Until I hope you enjoy my latest direction.
