Getting Into It

I am currently working on my Italy series. In regards to working in series, I feel I often stop short, before the set is fully realized, and then I am onto the next series. I think this is due to longer pauses in the studio which occur when I am teaching.

Through my search back into the work today, I re-found a connection with what I am trying to do. The question is: Am I trying to reference the outside world, or is it about the interior world?

Perhaps when I feel more integrated within myself, I will feel less splintered and find the stand I am searching for. Meanwhile, when things are so unclear, I try and follow my intuition as best as I can.

Other discoveries made today are by using a small brush to cover a large canvas, it felt similar to the way drawing hatched lines do in my works on paper. Perhaps it is the time it takes to do each of these activities, which makes them both meditative.

Painting in oils again is suddenly much more satisfying than ink and gouache. The brilliance of color and the luminosity it emits is much more suiting to the light I search for. I have also grown tired of sanding the work on paper and being immersed in its dust. The density of paint allows me to achieve the texture I desire through the layering of paint.

I want to look at Jasper Johns work right now. I have been obsessively thinking about his personal visual diaries. He brings an intense intimacy to the work, yet he works with pop subject matter, neutral tones (in his grey series) and plays with the tactile nature of paint in the foreground.