After an awkward and disconcerting hiatus from regular painting while my new studio space was being built and furnished, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend the past month back at the easel on a regular basis.
I’ve been working on a half-finished painting that was begun after its original spark of inspiration occurred during the early summer months of 2014. It was then picked at sporadically through the fall and left dormant in winter, until finally undergoing the last push toward completion in the past few weeks.
Occasional and intermittent work on a serious and challenging painting is one of my least favorite phenomena. On the contrary, steady and regular progress on a painting keeps the spindly and often ephemeral thread of inspiration intact long enough to keep the nipping dogs of self-doubt and overquestioning at bay. So now I have uncertainties about some of the choices made in the progression of this painting, but done is done. I’d love to carry on the themes and subject matter of this one into future related works, though. We’ll see how that pans out. So many ideas and images in my head…so little of it turns into a physical object in this shared reality.
Here are some progress shots from last year and this month. The completed piece will be unveiled soon, after I hopefully think of a title.
