each panel is 22" x 30" .. . I have made a design problem by using the central clam shells in the first sketches. As I work to embed the original five studies, I experience the blur between what my mind knows to be separate ideas about each shell and what my eye sees as a blurred unsettled visual field. As my eyes tire, it is less possible to impose. My Psyche's labor of untangling the textural uniformity is a process by which the many holds each one, strictly by the numbers, the more you have the less you get.. and it is harder to discriminate, to see into the overall pattern. The eye that wants to see one or two at a time. In the actual work of drawing, I can only see so much as I can, but if I dwell too long on one shell group, it creates too much interest. The time spent working an area is parsed by visual fatigue and active restraint. If it gets too fussy too soon, I have entered too much of my ideas about the arrangement. It is a visual game where the options, many at first, dwindle as each of my choices narrows the field of what is possible in a next/last dynamic. I try to keep the widest number of options open for as long as possible. My goal is to observe my uneasiness as each new set of variables changes the space as I avoid the easy fix. I believe the only way to make new decisions is to make new mistakes. I create the tension of not knowing and that keeps me visually engaged with the surface until I am too tired or hungry to make another mark.
2 comments:
Each shell has its story and as the pile of shells grows or wanes the stories roll in and out and foam momentarily together, the words of the song changing with each shell coming or going, with each ripple or wave.
The song remains true… or untrue, I suppose, depending on what we as viewer, as listener need it to be.
As I prepare to do “photo as narrative” class or as the great marketing mark-up has dubbed it, “Tell a story with your camera”…ugh, boring, too many words, not enough letters, I ponder on our own humming within the continuum…
Are my stories like your dad’s best told from outside of myself? Do they only have value in the sparks that they ignite in another’s heart or memory…. or… from deep within her cycle of doubt?
Nice work.
Thank you.
Leland.
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