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abstract, abstract art, art, Creative Nonfiction, creativity, Mixed Media, painting, the creative process, watercolor
“Warm and rich, rich and warm, which is which?” Like a mantra, these words echo through my mind as I stare at my painting, trying to discover its name.
I’ve hardly bothered with naming other paintings. They seem content with brief descriptive titles: “Sea Cave as Seen from Highway 1,” “Blue Bowl with Dancing Poppies,” “Landfall, the Marquesas.” Some I never name at all, or having scribbled something on the back of the painting before framing, have since forgotten.
But these recent abstracts seem to want more. Or maybe it’s me that wants more. We have a complicated relationship.
It began with a playful intent, the desire to enrich myself with color, to see what these two vibrant colors in juxtaposition had to say to each other, and how they made me feel as they danced across the page and spilled down the edges.
It started with oil pastel, a ribbon of red, a ribbon of yellow, swirling across a blank page. Then a line divided them, not evenly, but generously. Each color sat side by side, like lovers in conversation. But what they had to say swirled around them, crossing lines, and mirroring each other. Each crossing enriched, lighting up and warming the other. They seem separate and distinct, yet the swirls of pastel beneath them, the patterns that play across the line, unite them.
They seem two but are many. On one side, first vermillion, then scarlet, then crimson, each layer texturing and deepening the other. On the other side, cadmium yellow, quinacridone gold, drips of vermillion. Streaks of French ultamarine blue on the left, then a swathe of it at the center washed away. More gold on top of that. A glittering of yellow oil pastel at the center creates a single, subtle eye.
The whole process is like a conversation between myself and the painting that emerges on the page. The paint and brushstrokes, like words we use to speak to each other. Do you like this? Not so much. How about that? Better, but I need something more. No, not that. Yes, this. I love, love love this! Big smiles all around.
Making, erasing, dripping, glacing, washing away. On and on it goes, not knowing when to stop, where to stop. Then stopping.
Once it’s complete, the question comes. How do I know it’s done? What makes it complete? Is there simply a sense of resolution? Of satisfaction? Or the sense that any new mark-making will be its unmaking? A made-thing would be undone, so therefore, no more making? I do not know. The painting itself seems to tell me it is done, and I cannot translate the words.
But now the naming. How do you name such a thing? Can it go unnamed, untitled, a mere number? Why not? In truth it is nothing. Paint, paper, play. It’s not even art. Who is to say it’s art? Who can proclaim with absolute authority, this is art, this is not?
There is but one creator. One I. It spills through each of us, every day, every moment, each time we pick up a pen, a brush. Each time we walk into the kitchen and pour a cup of tea, a cup of coffee. What is this? A new thing.
I am the only one who can name this new thing. It came from me, or at least through me. It swirls around me. All that crimson and gold, warm and rich, rich and warm, but which is which?
All that spilling together, washing through me as I view it, as I take it in, this painting, this new-made thing. A part of me, speaking to me. Creation to creator. What is it saying?
“Like two lovers in conversation.” It speaks and I complete its thought, I speak and it completes me. And so we name it.
I am struck by so many parallels between painting and writing such as knowing when something is done. I can endlessly tinker with my writing but at some point I have to say “enough”. Was it ee cummings who didn’t name a lot of his poetry? I think so. We place great stock in naming as though only a name can make a thing exist even when it exists without us, like plants and trees and birds. Just because we don’t know its name doesn’t make it less real. I so enjoy these musing posts, Deborah. You always give me much to ponder.
Yes, I see those paralels too, over and over again. Perhaps because painting and writing, all creative endeavors, come from the same place and share a common process. I’m sure it was cummings, the way he minimizes his own name would support that tendency toward not-naming. i’m torn between the naming and not-naming. On one hand the naming can seem so pretentious, too precious, when it comes to naming out artwork. On the other hand, there is something about a naming, an almost religious element, Not so much a defining as an affirmation. Thank you for sharing your musings with me, Susanne. Gives me more to ponder.
Beautiful on multiple levels.
Thank you, Catherine.
What was on your mind when you started this painting? Did it turn out the way you envisioned in the beginning? Sometimes a name can precede the artwork, unless in the act of painting, it turns into something else.
I really like this painting.
j
Good questions. I love the colors of gold and scarlett, especially together, and I’ve admired many paintings that use these colors primarily, especially in abstract art. I also see them, somehow, as having a Persian flavor. I drew a line because I wanted to explore them individually as well as in combination. I had no preconceived notion of what I wanted the painting to become, but I was pleased with the outcome, and I could see a “Persian influence in the subtle patterns the foil blotting created throughout. I’m glad you like the painting. I admire yours so much as well.
You put into words what I feel rumbles through me as I paint. I couldn’t even try to convey what you managed to do here. Painting, life and the spiritual is often sifting through and continuing over and over especially in the life of a creative. Love your painting and your analysis, very thought provoking. The word “Becoming” seem to loom up as I read your post and looked at your painting, which by the way, is beautiful and very much full of emotional meaning.
Thank you, Margaret. That means a lot to me. I think that you are right in how those elements weave together in the life of a creative, as you say. We are all part of a “becoming,” aren’t we?
exactly! 😉
Of course it’s art. You created from someplace deep inside yourself and allowed that energy to flow through you and out onto the medium. It’s art and it’s beautiful.
Words that warm my heart, thank you.
I’m still at the ‘untitled’ stage. I really admire those that can name their work, and so poetically!
I haven’t named many. Some don’t seem to need a name. But for those that do I’ve discovered that finding the “perfect” name is one of the hardest parts in the process, and in some ways the most rewarding.
Naming? It’s art. It’s life. It’s poetry in motion. It’s creativity and soul expression. It’s lovely in its own right. Nameless or named, it remains those things. Much to muse on here as you explore ways in which the Muse has spoken to and through you. I love your creative exploration, Deborah! 😊💜
Thank you, Joy, it does give me much pleasure. I do love the idea of poetry in motion, in paint, as well as in nature or in words. Named or unnamed, as you say.
‘It swirls around me.’
I, too, ‘felt’ something in your painting – the naming rings true.
It makes me smile to think you felt that “something” too, Laura. Thank you for that.
Nice
https://lrnesy.wordpress.com/gallery/
Thank you.
I feel that the naming is the final piece of the creative process of a painting. For me that is where the creative journey comes to a halt. Yes, they are some that won’t ever require a name and I find that intriguing. Is it that we are more attached or can relate to the named ones? and the unnamed ones keeps us guessing, or is it less relevant to our conscious. Either way your posts are full of relevance & intrigue! Thank you Deborah.
It is interesting how some call out for a name and others are content to just “be.” I’m glad to hear that you have the same experience with your paintings. Thank you for joining the conversation. I am so glad you are enjoying my posts. That means a lot to me.
Hi Deborah! I enjoyed your writing and got that special giggle when you said, will this mark destroy it? I often say that at some point my painting begins to work me instead of me working it. And it becomes demanding and I am the willing subordinate and give it what it wants. Sometimes it will name itself and some times it will write a complete autobiography. 😀 Thanks for sharing.
I am glad you enjoyed that. Yes, it does seem to go more smoothly when the painting is speaking to us and leading us to “give what it wants.” Painting itself, so to speak. It’s that way with writing too. The best writing comes when flows through us onto paper as if we and our pen are just the transcribers of something larger than us. Perhaps it works that way for all great works of art, or creative endeavor.
Sometimes it happens that a couple colors evoke an entire painting. You express that strange fact so well — certainly it accords with my experiences. Very often the whole idea of a painting began with my wondering about two or more colors, with wanting to see them, wanting to use them. Sometimes what I love in the works of various artists begins in the same way — how often I fastened onto a detail in a painting by a master I love as I stared into the beauty of some passage of color.
Thank you for sharing that. This is true for me too. That “fastening onto” some aspect of another’s painting as an inspiration for my own is so true too, and other way to “further the conversation” started by another artist.