PAINTING AGAIN
DURING & BEYOND COVID (2021 - 2024)
In 2007, recorded in an earlier page ("I Quit") on this site, painting --- my primary creative means for ½ century --- had given me all I needed from it. The works since then weren't made with paint except for small portraits that I didn't exhibit, but were done as a hand/eye exercise and as gifts. When COVID struck, we paid attention to the "rules," and spent months in isolation, avoiding being around many people and attending public events. But while my media may have changed, the creative impulses never left. The art became more conceptual, 2-d gave way to constructions, and I shifted to writing new essays or to organizing old ones (for the grandchildren, you know, who'll probably never read them).
Two more "books" came out (see pages on Exhibition X and In the Shade of a Dead Palm), and I did several politically-charged works to be shown eventually. But one day in 2022 I said out loud, in front of my husband Ray (aka Mister Man), these fateful words: "I think I'll start painting again." Before I knew it, he'd built four stretchers, complete with canvas, and each was 48" x 36".
Shoot.
The results were --- are --- paintings of and from my photographs, without any intentional content, although the stairs and doors suggested themes as I worked. Working from simple photos required me to paint in a totally new way, or perhaps in a quite old one, like 2-d design lessons I taught ½ century ago. Yes, I use favorite photos I have taken, and yes, I am painting PICTURES. No, I don't enlarge, project, or divide the compositions prior to painting; I use lots of tape and rulers; I measure and draw/tape straight lines. And, though the results have changed since 2022, sometimes getting looser and a bit more painterly, they all do, to varying degrees, what I hope they will: look almost photo-real from a few feet, then disclose the looseness and invented patterns on close view.
And the true intention of these paintings revealed itself as I progressed, regressed, and progressed again.
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"2021," 2022, acrylic, 48" x 36"
The original photograph, slightly enlarged for my eye-to-hand examination, showed a door with a white metal palm tree and the beautiful blue sky showing in all its negative spaces. But remember, it was 2021, and that was a tough, tough year. So I painted the "doorway," the "entrance " or "exit" solid black to represent my world view, attitude, despondency, whatever you want to call it. It's hardly a happy painting.
BUT: if I were still around students, I'd give them a small copy and ask them to count the triangles.
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"TWIST," 2022, acrylic, 48" x 36"
Each of these paintings, done from beginning to 90%-or-so complete, gave me ideas about how to approach the one to follow. My early intention --- particularly in this composition --- was to make the shapes as simple and as flat as possible while suggesting as much depth as possible. There are quite a few compositions within the overall one, and, once again, plenty of triangles. And squares, rectangles, etc.
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"PENTHOUSE," 2023, acrylic, 48" x 36"
Oddly, I have nothing to say about this image. As a small photograph, I simply "liked" it: anything with the basics of red, yellow, blue, black, white and gray grabs my attention. I particularly like discovering its small gestures of paint that, from a short distance, "read" as details.
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"TO THE BLUES," 2023, acrylic, 48" x 36"
Just another likable photograph, with its complex shadows and projections, that demanded I give it a lot of looking and simplifying without losing its physical/compositional "content." There is no other content or meaning (unless I discover and invent one during the painting process).
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"SCHRODINGER'S DOOR," 2024, acrylic, 48" x 36"
90% finished...
Again, I would describe this as having no overt content, and yet... so many of my photographs include stairways, doors, and/or windows: openings and barriers, that sort of thing. As for this one --- a location in Mexico I walked by and photographed nearly every day ---, as I worked, I kept thinking about the door: is it opening (please!) or closing? A future painting may answer this one...
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"MINE IS THE MORNING", 2024, acrylic, 48" x 36"
Original photo by Marcia McCoy, with her permission
A dear friend posted a photo of/similar to this scene, and when I asked to use it, she gave me total permission; thank you, Marcia! The painting process taught me so many things --- as each one of these backward-looking ones have done --- about underpainting and then taping and adding another color and then taping... and then... and then... It was a challenge. The result isn't true to the original photograph, but at some point, I found myself saying: whew, enough! (Many people see the blue shape outside the door as water, but it's actually a photo of a blue wall. No matter.)
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"FOUND IT!"
2024, acrylic, 36" x 36"
This painting is unique from some of the others, done from a 4" square severely cropped from a full-size photograph I can no longer find! Rather than enlarging and/or doing anything that would've made the process easier, I merely looked at the photo as my little hand held its total. Early on I quit looking at the original source and merely --- merely! --- depended on 2-d design questions & answers (mostly questions!) to guide me toward the painting's finish. (I THINK it's finished!)
Now, for fun: QUICKLY click through these daily signs of progress/regress, like a flip-book.
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"CARNIE"
paused, and perhaps abandoned on 12/3
This painting is from an edited photograph I took at a Mexican festival many years ago. First I had to make the image into a square, then --- because it was the election season --- I chose to make the originally divided horse groups into a consistent line. (I wish I hadn't.) Without warning, on November 18 this project went from deep looking at and copying a tiny photo to being "art" as I know it. Then I went too far, and am, perhaps temporarily or permanently quitting again! (I've got a book to write and, darn it, I'm o-l-d so I better hurry.) Stay tuned.
SO, ONCE AGAIN: I QUIT!
I am writing this epilogue on April 20, 2025. As I thought about this "series" of paintings on yet another sleepless night, I realized a few things:
My paintings in the late 20th century were content-heavy with political, environmental, feminist and other themes that, together, seemed to say "PAY ATTENTION!" After 9/11/2001, the last thing I wanted to do was pay attention, so the final large paintings were my equivalent to prayers: "Please, please, please." This recent series had no content, at least not from the outset. In the first work titled "2022" and done in 2023, the black door signified that previous year's crises --- COVID, politics, etc. --- and the unknown future, but that alteration came at the end of the process rather than being its intention from the beginning.
And the process was the most important aspect of this body of work. I learned so much, having intentionally gone back to basic two-dimensional design "issues." Then I would take whatever I learned into the next painting's process. Making decisions and being conscious of them became the point, nothing more, nothing less, and it was enough.
The final and unfinished painting shown above was set aside in late 2024, as politics became the focus for me and for the country and world.
For a while I fiddled with color, finally going from blue to orange in the horses' "race," and then abandoning it.
During the long night I realized that the completed works (with one exception, still waiting for a darkening glaze if/when I'm so inclined, or not inclined!) were done during President Biden's time in office. It was like a mental explosion: of course! I was able to disregard using
my work to say, imply, or to ask things other than simple compositional questions. That process gave me intense pleasure and rewards.
And now, just a few months into a new and fraught era... where and how do I go on?
It may not be Art, capital A, but something new and inarguable and relevant is underway. I repeat myself: stay tuned.
bh 4/20/2025
AND THEN--- NOW (MAY, 2025) --- AGAIN, I PAINT
The previous painting, "The Circus'" was indeed abandoned. Content had begun to creep in, in part to save the dissatisfying composition.
I began to paint the horses with colors from blue to orange, reflecting the presidential race. ENOUGH. NO.
Instead I kept my political activism separate, as the following images demonstrate. THEY ARE NOT ART by any stretch --- they are the front
and back of a sign I carry to numerous protests and marches ---, but they helped me continue to focus solely on formal investigations.
Additionally (and ongoing) is a map that responds to the Presidential Order declaring English to be the official language of the U.S. As I made the previous paintings, I realized that their function was to redirect my mind to simple, basic, and formal decisions, a process that helps complement the angst-ridden realities of "paying attention" --- what my "art life" has been devoted to.
This project will continue to live in the studio and perhaps continue to develop. It's a "fun" learning experience.
"ON A HILL FAR AWAY"
(in progress)
So now I can return with a clear mind to the canvas. This current work, 36" x 36", is still in progress as I fine-tune details and consider using this minimal composition as an underpainting for drawn details. Again, it is based in one of my many photographs that are "framed" by a retired 2-D Design teacher! (Images are in reversed-chronology order and begin near the end of the process. Note the smallest changes/decisions as time goes on... )
To be continued... bh 6/01/2025