Snow daze
I had to dig out and dust off my shovel this morning. Every winter for the past ten years, I’ve always scoffed at the thought that it’s actually going to snow. Ok, wait, I’ve always scoffed at the thought that it’s actually going to snow before January. And it almost never does any more here in Philly. In fact, Decembers here are generally pretty warm now.
Today started with me cancelling my “orientation day” with my new studio intern and moving that meeting to tomorrow at the same time. I had another meeting that had to be rescheduled, as well. I thought I’d go to the studio anyway, but I’m going to remain at home today, catch up on some admin items, do some reading and finally put away my clean laundry from last week.I got up later than I thought I should have, after hearing people shoveling their sidewalks around 7:30 this morning. That made me just burrow further under the blankets. Once I did rise to the occasion, I went to the basement to retrieve the shovel only to find it covered in dust and cobwebs. Reaching for the handle, a centipede skittered away. I literally had to wipe down the shovel like it was an ancient artifact. It’s been that long since there was any use for it.
Torn/Reborn
Not long ago, I talked about new works that I’d made out of torn parts of damaged, large works on paper (38” x 50”). I wasn’t sure as to what I was trying to do, but over the past couple of weeks, I’ve made a few others, seen above. The longest measurement among them is about 34 inches. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on with them conceptually, but I know that I’m enjoying making these “remnants”. There’s something about overwriting another image that’s kind of exciting for me, even when it’s my own work. Using an established image as a starting point and imposing other marks onto it is like a way of marking personal time, bringing the old work into the new, as well as a kind of erasure. All of these things are happening and true at once.
Bringing new life to old ideas has been a mainstay in my painting for a long time. During the life in the making of a painting, there are several times when layers will get covered up, partially or fully and I’ll continue searching for a final image. Painting is a time-based performance that, in general, builds from past to present, based on how we view actions over time. We can scrape out paint and layers, if working in oils, but are we time traveling and effectively and removing that layer of time? No. We’re removing the evidence of of that point in time, but we’re not going back in time to the moment that layer was made. Our actions are still within advancing time, as we know it. Painting over that layer now creates another timeline of sorts, if I can borrow an idea from the MCU. In other words, each time we rework a canvas, we build upon what was there and make not only a new version, but a new path altogether. This might seem out there, but it’s one way that I try to reconcile what happens when we take actions to eradicate what was to build anew.
Speaking of time…
Some ideas in this post were inspired by a new podcast series I’ve been listening to called To The Best of Our Knowledge: Deep Time