For me the process of creating a piece starts far before anything ever reaches the panel. For this piece, titled “Life & Death,” it started with the class I was teaching last summer and one of the first assignments I gave my students to go shoot around campus, just concentrating on design and composition. While going through the submitted images for critique in class, I saw one student had photographed a deer skull in the nature area on campus. I was so excited I told him I wanted to know where it was and asked if he would take me to it. He agreed to show me, slightly amused at my request. It was no doubt not exactly the reaction he had anticipated. That’s how I acquired the deer skull in this piece. I had no idea what exactly I would do with it at first, just that I knew that I wanted to photograph it and use it somehow.
The same sort of thing applies to nearly every item I photograph. I often don’t know how it will fit in my work but I feel compelled to collect and photograph these items, trusting that the meaning and how it fits with other things will come with time. When I’m photographing the items, all I am concerned with is seeing the light and capturing the essence of the item, I am concentrating on the beauty of the form and presenting it in an pleasing manner.
After I’ve edited the photographs, I will print them out in small sizes and then start looking at them and how they might interact with each other. I’ll sometimes put them into compositions in a small journal, like sketches in a sketch book. Then it’s finally time to start on an actual piece. When I start printing out images for the piece, the relative sizes may change and sometimes an individual image may even change, but the concept remains.
Usually it’s somewhere in the time between capturing the images and putting them together into the piece that what they are actually saying starts to become clear. Suddenly a narrative comes out of the images and I understand what my subconscious was trying to say, or sometimes I am starting to understand. Maybe I will read something or have a conversation with someone and it’s like a little switch goes off in my head, triggering the artistic epiphany. Sometimes it happens later, when I’m in the physical stage of creating the piece. Sometimes the meaning is very clear to me and I can succinctly describe not just one meaning, but layers of meaning. Occasionally it is shrouded in mystery, tickling the edge of my mind and I can only just barely verbalize it. What I always know is that there is spiritual truth in the work, speaking to life, death, and transformation. I’ve been building a set of symbols that can be a guide to the narrative of each piece, but ultimately each viewer brings their own narrative to any work of art.
When I actually start applying the layers onto the panel, it’s a very meditative process. First some texture, then collage and gesso – it can be like prayer – then the photo layer and colored pencils – I am calm and focused – then paint, and more paint – I am eager with anticipation, waiting to see what it will finally look like – more collage, more paint – I’m on a voyage of discovery – wax pastels, more paint, more pastels – constantly experimenting and trying new things – adding whatever else the piece calls for. It’s a process that takes days, building up the layers, like a reverse archaeological dig. When I’m painting, I feel more alive. I can get lost in the process, unaware of time, like when I’m reading a really good book or watching a very engaging movie. Time stands still in the art making and all is well.
“Life & Death” is 10×10″ and created with photo transfers, ephemera, colored pencils, acrylics, wax pastels and a real feather. If you’re interested in this painting, contact me by clicking the link at the top of this page or by commenting below.
