My father-in-law passed away on the 28th of February, so many things I had been working on were temporarily derailed. We're getting back on track, slowly but surely.
This week, there was a deadline for entries to a local show at Fuller Lodge Art Center. The show is entitled Periodic Table, and the call for artists was the following: "Look through the periodic table, explore the elements and imagine the possibilities! Create work by using the building blocks that compose our world." I, uh, rather loosely interpreted the statement as an exploration of elements that form or create the world around us, sans the Periodic Table. I chose to look through the lens of some of the physical forces that shape the land, and used a more historic naming of the Elements– Wind, Water, and Fire. In order to keep the idea of Elements in my work, I titled the series Persistent Elements, but of course, no one who is on the judging committee is reading this explanation, so I'll have to wait and see if they feel that my work is connected enough to the title and theme to be included in the show.
Persistent Elements: Wind
Pastel on Paper, 2013
Persistent Elements: Water
Pastel on Paper, 2013
Persistent Elements: Fire
Pastel on Paper, 2013
I struggled a lot with the last one. I had a vision, and had even started it in larger format in acrylic a couple of years ago, but it just didn't seem to come together. I was hoping for a bolder interpretation in the colors, and it ended up more washed out and flatter seeming than I originally wanted. But, I reached a point that seemed like an end point: I could no longer seem to change or add to it so that it was different. And oddly, that was okay. Perhaps I'll revisit it again someday and push the painting in a new direction, but I felt done with this one.
