2016 Has Been a Great Year So Far

I entered 2016 with absolutely no shows on my calendar. Surprisingly, I found this situation comforting and so far, this has been a great year for my work. I was fortunate enough to have 3 solo shows in past couple of years as well as curate a show of over 100 works by 11 artists, Last year I was so busy, I really didn’t have the time to step back and assess what I was making.  This year I have been taking the time to explore certain themes in depth and it is really paying off. Even though I am a notoriously slow painter, I have completed nearly 30 painting through July with many more on the way. There are three interrelated series that I have been working on. The Systems series has been the most productive. These are grid-based paintings, that are composed by setting rules for how the grid is painted then following them randomly. I’ve generally worked on 4 pieces at a time in this series with the same colors. I’ve finished a few paintings in the Tangles series that uses ribbon-like linear elements and the third series, Tangled Systems overlays the Tangles on a grid-based Systems ground. I have been working on a fourth series of 14 paintings based on the songs from Brian Eno’s Another Green World (see below). My paintings are based largely on musical concepts and I have also been working on creating music, including 31 short (~17 second) pieces to accompany my paintings. I’ve challenged myself to take 4 of these pieces and turn them into complete “songs” this month. To say that I am super-excited about my work right now feels like an understatement.

I’ve decided to start my blog again to help with this exploration. Though I don’t think many people blog anymore, I find that writing things down helps me organize my thoughts and work through ideas better. This just can’t be done with social media posts. I’ve never been one to keep a journal but I guess that is actually what this blog could be concidered. So the blog is really for myself but I hope others may find it interesting enough to read and chime in occasionally.  Along with the blog, I am going to try to keep up with an Artists Facebook page that will include links to the blog and other art /music specific posts.