Candy Colored Creeks and Lollipop Trees

I've been spending the majority of my time working on the painted objects this past week. The lollipop trees are nearing completion. After laying on several layers of under-painting, I started working on layers of poured paint over the trees. The underlying structure has too much depth for me to control the pours with much accuracy. As a result, I was pretty much stuck with whatever happened. At first this was highly frustrating, then I decided just to go with it. Removing the tape allowed paint to run off of the trees and pool wherever it ended up. The pattern that emerged after the pink pours was very interesting so I decided to stop there. Feeling the need to experiment even more, I started adding layers of dots on the flat surfaces at the top of each form. The original impression/memory that inspired this piece involved watching the wind blow through the trees behind my grandmother's house. The way the light shimmered off of the vibrating leaves gave me a sense that the trees were alive and breathing. My goal was to create a static object that embodied that kind of kinetic energy. At the moment the plan is to complete the dot layers, then add some texture in the form of a grass pattern in the negative space on the right side of the composition.

After 1st 2 pours

After 3rd pour

Building up dots

A detail of pooled paint

I completed and gessoed two forms from a previous post. This week I worked on building up the surface texture a bit. These two pieces will be monochromatic. I plan to cover one with layers of stain to emphasize the surface texture. The other will be finished off with a pour on top of the stain. I also worked on making a new piece.

This will be the 3rd form in the series

A detail of the 4th in the series

New piece to papier-mache next week.

Finally, the beads....not much new to report with that piece. Still pushing forward. I'm starting to vary the size and color of the beads more; creating a patterns of concentric circles within the overall pattern.

Maybe I spoke too soon...

A couple of posts ago I said that the most important aspect of my work is time rather material or labor. Now I'm not so sure. Tonight, as I made countless slow, meditative circular motions with my hand to rub coffee ground paste into a piece of cloth, I revisited that decision in my thoughts. Perhaps the material is of little consequence. It doesn't matter whether its dyeing and drying sand, then sifting it back into its fine texture, pouring identical little piles of sand, or neatly arranging sand into smooth rows. It doesn't matter whether its carefully pressing rice paste into fabric to make a pattern or rubbing coffee into fabric to stain it. Clay, sand, newspaper, cardboard, coffee, cotton, rice, flour are all simply materials. Materials that outside of the context of art are not regarded very highly. Labor (the time, process, and effort I exert) is the agent that turns these humble materials into art.