Façade IV: Chrome Oxide
39 x 60 inches

Here is the finished version of the piece I wrote about on Jan. 3. This series is inspired by walls of old buildings which have been painted over numerous times, with the top layers wearing away to reveal what lies beneath; sometimes there’s also graffiti, and all of it blends together to form a rich visual texture. My process in painting these is somewhat analogous to what these walls undergo. I add various elements, then subtract parts of them by adding more layers, while the layers of paint are affected by the physical texture of the underlying support — in my case, it’s fabric and stitching.

This leads into what’s been an ongoing dilemma for me: how to categorize this work. I’ve been calling them “mixed media textiles” because I don’t want to use the dreaded “q” word, and they’re more than paintings. “Quilts” suffer a bad rap in the art world; no matter how serious the artist nor how important the work, the medium is considered a “craft” and is therefore inferior to painting. Thanks to the efforts of many artists in the field and organizations such as SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc.), some progress has been made toward overcoming this image, but the battle isn’t won yet.

Façade IV: Chrome Oxide (detail)

Well, you have to expect that the first few posts are going to be awkward ramblings until the neophyte blogger can find her voice and get into a rhythm. There is so much to learn, and while I am slightly more technical than the average artist, I’m finding this all very bewildering. But my original intention for this journal was to keep it more art-related and try not to wander too far off track with boring details.

So to that end, here’s some art-related content. I’m working on two pieces now that aren’t coming together easily. Sometimes this happens, either because my original vision wasn’t very clear, or because it turned out to be hard to articulate. Let’s just take one of them to discuss for now.

I started the painting on this one a few weeks ago. I had a very clear idea of the colors I wanted to use and how I wanted to divide up the composition, but it just isn’t working at this point. It feels like 3 separate panels, and they aren’t integrated. I like each separate section, but they just don’t make sense together.

To attempt to solve this, I changed the color for the middle section. It became very flat at that point, so I used some dark values to bring out the shapes from the original piecing and make it more dimensional, and I changed some of the values in the vertical sections. It’s still not where I want it to end up, but it’s getting there.

I’ll keep working it at it.