Scraping the Canvas

Part of the silent agreement I made with myself when I began on Clean Water, was that it might not be perfect or look anything like I want it to, but that didn't matter.  I could reproduce it again until I got it right if I wanted--using the lessons I learned making the one before.

That idea came to me from Art & Fear and was reinforced by seeing that Dali repeated his art at times.

I decided that I could always scrape off areas that I didn't like what they looked like and start them over. I realized I had done that for two custom pieces I created as presents. Although I hate the idea of having to scrape the glass off without disturbing surrounding areas, I realized that it is unlikely that any artist relishes the idea of scraping the material from their canvas to fix an error; and, that perhaps it is part of the process.

I'd much rather spend my time getting to the end of the piece so I can finally meet it, but I'd get more pleasure from something I didn't cringe at each time I looked at it.

PS....Happy Birthday to Jaime--the sister that God forgot to give me!

Art needs time to breathe

Well, another day without a mosaic.  Tomorrow is the day.  I swear!  I am going to mix the black acrylic paint into the entire tub of white mastic and then it will be on like Donkey Kong.  I am no longer afraid of the new tools and am ready to conquer them.

My head was all over the place yesterday, I wanted to journal, I wanted to draw, I wanted to mosaic, and I wanted to clean my closet.  I drew...and then played my seek and find game on my computer to just mellow the head.

This was a stressful week, and an irritable one too. I think I am coming out of it though.  Soooo looking forward to the weekend.

Day Two

I bought a book while I was in Yosemite titled, Art and Fear -- Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. I'm glad I did. I'm about half way through it--taking my time reading it, which is good because what I am reading is sticking with me.

So, when I finished my second mosaic for this project, and readied it for a photograph, I remembered what I read in that book about how art nearly always looks better (sounds better--depending on your medium) in your head than it does in the physical world.

I saw the things that could have been better, what I should have done differently, contemplated removing a piece (which I am still contemplating) and replacing it so  it conveys my thoughts when creating the piece, and I thought about pointing them out to defend myself.

I have decided to let the piece stand as is, not to bash or defend it, and just to appreciate it for what it is.  Hmmmmm could this be a lesson that is to be learned from this project.

A few years back I created a mosaic that I really didn't like once it was finished. It sat on the shelf for months before my friend saw it and said she liked it.  Gladly, I gave it to her.  Now, each time I see it at my friends house, I almost regret giving it to her because I really like looking at it when I am there.  Don't know where it'd fit in my home.  Maybe it just needed the right home for it to come alive.

This was the first time that I used broken dishes in a mosaic.  Now I can begin to hack away at the broken dishes that fill a small dresser that I absconded from a trash can somewhere and repainted. Once you begin mosaic, nearly all broken things become worthy of saving.

Now that I have used them, I suddenly am evaluating in my head which of the broken dishes deserve to be preserved for larger "more thought out" mosaics, rather than being used for this year long project.  There I go with the thinking thing again.

...by the way the book I mentioned earlier is by David Bayles & Ted Orland; and, thanks to Marisa Zocco for taking the artsy photos of my mosaic for the day.

This mosaic is titled: Friendship