I am ready for it

Continuing to create in the face of chaos...

As I write this, I am ready for today’s No Kings protest in my little town. I’m not worried about violence, or assault from the police. While my area isn’t a monochromatic blue, we are in the majority. We’re not a major metropolitan area, even though we are near one.

What we are fighting for is to continue to have a real life

And in the interest of real life, instead of adding my words to the as yet to unfold events of the day, I’m going to talk about my real life, which is mostly spent in my studio.

As I prepare for my upcoming show in Seattle, I had to write a new artist statement. I actually like writing them. It focuses my thoughts about what I’ve been doing the last year or so. I decided to share that statement with you here:

Artist Statement for my July show at the Fountainhead Gallery in Seattle
To make paintings is a constant process of making decisions. First the decisions in what to observe, decisions about composition and structures of light and dark, how they intersect and fit together. Every brush stroke is a separate decision, and in the end, you hope that the individual decisions make a cohesive statement, that every brushstroke, every color, and shift from dark to light all combine to make a harmonious whole.

In making monotypes, a form of printmaking that does not use a “fixed plate” as in etching or woodcuts, you apply ink to a blank surface, and transfer the ink under pressure to a piece of paper. A monotype is a singular print, in that it cannot be repeated. I start with a separate drawing or color study, which guides what colors and where I add them to each layer of printing. The “mono” refers to the number of images that can be produced, rather than the number of layers of printing, which can be infinite.

You might well ask: if you are only making one, why not paint directly on your paper, rather than going through all that process to transfer ink from one surface to another?

My answer is this: ink under pressure reacts differently than ink applied directly to a surface. Pressure is where the magic happens. While I still need to make decisions: what color, how opaque or transparent, what to remove, what to keep — the act of sending a plate with ink through the press contains both faith and an acceptance to embrace the accidental. It also contains the seeds of disaster, but in making monotypes, what looks like a disaster may be an opportunity in the making.

My painting process is very deliberate and controlled, with an infinity of tiny decisions contained in the finished painting. My desire to also work in monotypes and embrace the accidental will, I hope, open the door to a richer embrace of that randomness into my painting.

As a painter, as a life long artist, my goal is to keep evolving until the day I must finally lay down my brushes.

Fountainhead Gallery is at 625 McGraw Street, in the Queen Anne Hill neighborhood of Seattle. If you are in the Seattle area, it would be lovely to see you there at the reception. (I’d say opening, but it is kind of in the middle of the show which runs from July 3rd to August 3rd)

I hope to see you there!