The first issue that I encounter with this project (the only one so far, but I imagine that there will be more) is that of its origin. If the coming series of posts is to in one way provide a sort of tour of the environment from which I draw much of the imagery that is represented in my paintings, the first question is where to begin, and there are several places to consider:
The front door. As this exercise is confined to the boundaries of my home, one logical point of departure is its entrance. An issue arises though as there really isn’t a primary entrance to the house. Our home has two entrances. They are both on the same side of the house, which incidentally is on the side of the property, off of the street address of the property. To pick one entrance over the other would on one hand compliment the random element of my work, which is rooted in a process of (somewhat) random choice; on the other hand, my issue with this introduction is that it takes the house to be the subject of the project, when I feel that it has a lot more to do with an individual’s existence within it.
The bedroom. With this in mind, the next logical place I might consider starting is from the bedroom, the place where most of my days begin. My problem with this is its generality. If this small project is to follow the spirit of the work, this point of departure is, unlike the door, lacking the unpredictability of notation and play that includes itself in the generation of imagery for the work.
The bathroom. This brings me to the place that I feel is most authentic to the character of work. When I first considered this project as a possibility, I was sitting in the bathtub. I was looking over the last post I had made to the blog on my phone, noticing an error in which I introduced a point ‘First’, and later ‘firstly’ within the same sentence. I looked over at the tiles on the wall across from me, and noticed a discrepancy in the way in which the grout had been applied, smudged out from the gap between the tiles and onto the surface of one of the tiles. Two mistakes noticed. A funny little parallel. This little moment, noticing things on the walls, reminded me of the original writing project.
Incidentally (and somewhat conveniently), here is a painting that features all three of these spaces:
I feel that because of this, the bathroom is the place that is the most in line with the timbre of my recent paintings. The only thing is that there isn’t much - at least at first glance - hanging on the walls of the bathroom, but maybe that makes it the perfect place to start.
