Thursday, March 30, 2017

"Waste not, want not"

I have always loved color and how each one plays off of the other. Much of that play comes from layering when it comes to my silkscreens and now, my newest series of paintings.
As an art teacher, one gets left with lots of paint at the end of each day. Since my grandfather taught me to "Waste not, want not " I have always tried to use this paint rather than toss it and so began the series of small paintings, done rapidly and at the end of each work day. 
It is probably a good time to admit that until recently, I hate painting, in all forms. I hated it as a kid growing up ., when my dad would gather oil paint, canvases and my brother and I into the VW. He'd drive around the North Fork of Long Island countryside looking for farmland to paint. I hated everything about this experience and found it to be very boring and deeply frustrating. 
That created a divide that lasted through high school and college where I suffered anytime I had to paint. It might be one of the reasons that I fell in love with printmaking. It was so refreshing and different and mysterious. 
Much like my monoprint silkscreens, these paintings are 3-D : they have a front, side and back to them. And just like my silkscreens they are spontaneous : think visual jazz music.
This latest piece is the largest yet and like the others that came before it, it contains a little bit of each person who has participate in the Artist-In-Residence program in radiation / oncology . Like the quilts of yore ,made of shirts, dresses and all other manner of fabric scrapes that represented those who originally wore the garments now used in the quilt, each "artist" is symbolically present in these paintings that sometimes take months to complete. I love that idea...