After Friday's Crit

  After the critique on Friday some good points were made about my art and where I’m taking it. What happens when the paint dries? What’s the point of the work? What am I telling the viewer, what do I want them to walk away with?

  The point of the work is to freeze a moment of time. I am obsessed with this process of pouring the paint. The way it drips down, makes stripes within the various colors, the story of the uneven floor creating various patterns… I wanted others to share this moment with me. The excitement I get from these natural, organic, shapes and design, the way the paint falls and merges into itself and the other colors are so important to me and I wanted to share that with the viewers. The question was asked, however, of why I was doing this type of art. Why wasn’t I doing some type of preforming art? This is something I’ve never put any thought to, what so ever. I’ve always just been an artist of paint, clay, pastels, etc. never of acting or performance.   I don’t know how I feel about this. As of now I feel very apprehensive. I actually hate the idea. Though, it’s interesting and intriguing to me, I like the idea of trying something new and out of my comfort zone.

  So what does that mean for where I am now? I’m going to continue the search of whatever I’m looking for with this pouring paint thing, for now. I feel like the paint and I have some unfinished business. But, I also what to explore this idea of performance art. If I could capture the moments I love so much as their happening maybe either by video or by simply photographing them maybe that would portray my meaning better. My roots are in photography so this could be a project to look into. 

Mazes

  Previously I had talked about an idea to use maze like channels to direct the paint. I’ve been keeping my eyes open to find something that would work and I found a plant water catcher thing. It has 6 ducts to move the paint.     The paper was mostly level so that I could see what the paint would do. From each duct the paint made its own path, but, in the gaps the paint began to come together. This also made paths. Over all there were 16 paths (and small, potential paths) as opposed to the usual 4 paths when using a simple box.

  This piece was interesting and like the last piece a good way to learn about this process. It’s interesting to see the process as its being done, the heavier paint vs the thinner paint, if I shake the paint the bubbles that come through, if the canvas is level or not. There are many elements that can affect this process. It’s also interesting to see how it turns out when it’s all over. The paint continues to flow for a while, pushing each stripe further out, the paint dries and elements under the paint start to surface.