Me. I say that. Frequently.

I try out a lot of ideas in the studio. Some go on to become full-fledged artworks, and others get set aside after execution reveals their best worth is as an exercise, sample, or prototype of something more articulate. Forward is the strongest needle-pull on my artistic compass, and I find it difficult to reengage my creative gusto with unfinished works that seem past their pull date. In fact I regularly chuck them after they’ve served their illuminating purpose. My skill and aesthetic evolve, and I’m leery about the Frankenstein potential of grafting a college thesis onto a high school essay, so to speak.

This one, though, was in the much rarer ‘I like it but don’t know where to go with it’ category. I set aside the completed vertical axis five years ago, stymied as to what the background material/andamento should be. It needed to have a bit of shine but not too much, be low profile so the paper would stand proud, be ‘quiet’ in color and andamento so as not to overpower the central element, but be burly enough to enhance its delicacy. Gah! I hung it in my studio unfinished because its basic bones seemed good, and I hoped having it in my regular line of sight would a) show me that its bones had visual staying power, and b) suggest an eventual andamento/material solution for the background.)

Tidying up - er, rummaging through; er, hacking a path into - my home office last week, I ran across a box of creamy 4” square recycled glass field tiles from Seattle’s Bedrock Industries; an intriguingly ‘dirty’ cream that contains an element of darkness, as the warm-white paper in the central axis does. The clouds parted, sun rays danced, angels sang, and a background was born.

And contrary to my initial skepticism, it’s aliiiiiiive!

Among the Furrows, 23” x 20”, Glass, ceramic, paper, pigmented mortar on hand formed substrate