Future Perfect Now #94
I take three random words. I find myself staring blankly at the outside wall of the studio, having gone out to pick some beans for dinner. Three words that mean nothing to each other and would most likely never be seen in the same context, let alone the same sentence. I contemplate them, absorb them and slowly an image starts to form in my mind. Initially, it is a cliché, something obvious and literal. And I know that if I work with them, they will evolve into something else. I take the beans back to the kitchen and put them on the counter. You are not there, so I don’t break the flow. I head for the studio. No, I won’t say or write these words. That would bring them back down to where I don’t want them. As I walk, I contemplate the meaning of subject matter and abstraction—both words that start to lose their meaning, as I have conventionally thought of them. Subject matter dissolves into a deeper process as I start to lay down some thoughts or images, or non-thoughts and random (can they really be random?) musings. And so the process starts to take those first three words and re-connect them through me to some greater whole where, in fact, all is connected. So the words are simply a starting point. They have no meaning or context in and of themselves, except that they are a doorway I can choose to find a deeper truth.
About this image
Pomegranate, waves, mimosa: oil on canvas
24 x 48 inches
I took three words and started. Actually, this work turned out to be more semi-abstract than full abstract, but I am pleased with the result. Painted in troubled times as the coronavirus is gathering pace, we all need something to uplift us.
"The beautiful spring came, and when nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also."
Harriet Ann Jacobs