what art teaches me

Description

this piece started as just a loopy black painted line over many layers of paint – the off-white background had covered up some darker layers beneath. i was just playing. then i carved more lines into the wet paint, again just playing. some phrases started coming to me so i again cut them into the wet paint with an awl. then the paint dried but i felt it wasn’t done so i continued to carve into the now-dried paint, which was a LOT harder to do! but i loved the look of it. kind of folk-arty, kind of minimal. i loved the texture of carving into the paint and wood. so i kept carving. all the little symbols and shapes in the one corner just kinda happened. i did a few watery washes of blue-ish green and greenish-yellow over the off-white background paint to give it some texture and very faint color. the photo isn’t in need of a cast-correction – that’s actually the color that it ended up. lastly there’s a coat of gloss medium on top to seal it all in.

these phrases are things that i’ve been taught and have learned from my time studying abstract art. mantras i find myself writing down over and over in my art journal. art-making teaches us, asks us, to be present, trust your intuition, let yourself play, just take the next step, keep going, and to find your way as you go. it’s taken me all of my 58 years to realize art making is about life.

(i have chosen to present this panel in this particular orientation but really, you could choose to display it however you want. i decided to not sign it on the front for just this reason.)

acrylic on birch ply 12″ x 12″ x 1/4″

sold unframed

(photos in gallery are offered as suggestions to help you visualize how it might looked framed.)

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local new orleans pickup is available.