Production

The ground I’m covering lately, with the new, square paintings on glass is somewhat familiar.

After taking a break from grad school in 2000, I began to make sketches in MS Paint that eventually turned into paintings. At the time these were a reaction to what I saw as an over-seriousness about being cool (a contradiction yes and at the time one I was not ready to receive) which I felt was a prominent theme among the abstractionists that were getting lots of shine in Houston and nationally at the time (my artists statement was, roughly, “yeah, video games and Saturday morning cartoons baby!”).

While my newer work intends to have a more direct line to Albers, as I’ve written, the earlier work above was a nod in the direction of Richard Anuskiewicz (for whom the former was a mentor). Both shared a quite well established interest in color theory, and also in perception. In addition to this relationship between bodies of work, I also hope to soon be in need* of a different strategy for production in my practice that looks more like this earlier body of work, which mirrored Richard’s approach to making (heavy emphasis on planning to make production easier in the sense of being straightforward). Organizing my work flow into “bites” that I can chomp off as time allows will be necessary. There will be time for free-form creativity.

*More to come, suffice to say, life is in flux. Also, I am grateful to have this be the challenge I need to solve (verses so many others which could be my lot).