No, this is not an April Fool's prank!!! I just thought it would be a great way to start the month off with some thoughts... I was talking with my critique group and we were discussing the idea of transition with our artworks and the idea came when discussing mine called, the moment in between. This is exactly where I feel I am with my process. I'm working on new work which is very different from my previous work. It is utilizing line much more prominently - in fact, the entire work is nothing but line. This is not entirely new for me as I've made drawings like this in the past and have returned to them. But to create them with the encaustic is new. The encaustic was a fun process where as the drawings were more laborious. With the drawings, I was conscious of every stroke, every line was consciously drawn to make sure that it was an unique entity. This made the process very difficult and tedious. Whereas the encaustic, I just allowed the lines to flow. That was soooo much easier and much more fun. So I'm going to apply the freedom and fun of the encaustic to my drawings. It should be a much more enjoyable process! Getting back to the moment in between... when the work is taking on a new direction or the work is being created in a new language or medium - that is the moment of in between. As I've stated before, that is where I am at the moment. It was one thing to work with the found object and develop that into mature work but now that I am painting, just painting, I find that I'm working with a new language or should I say, one that I haven't developed in a long while. I haven't worked with the encaustic without the found object and this past year has been just that. I'm still working through the language, my symbolism, the meaning of the work. Heck, I'm trying to figure out exactly what I'm about artistically in this process!!!! I don't know yet. I feel I haven't created enough work to know at this point. One very valuable lesson I learned in grad school was to create many pieces in order to truly know what the work is about in order to establish the meaning and intent of the art work (I created almost 60 pieces to find out what my work was about at that time). I'm not sure if I'm going to create that many pieces now but I do know that in order to truly understand my concepts and materials, I'm going to have to really buckle down in the studio and make art. This place of the moment in between is really exciting and scary at the same time. For it is a time of discovery and experimentation and it is a time of truly not knowing what to expect! It could be disastrous but wonderful too. So far, it's been fun, challenging but fun. I feel I'm beginning to come into my own, creating my own work, not just working from old prototypes. Not to say that the older work was copied or not my creation, it's just that I feel that my work will mature into a more developed style and language. I'm excited to see what will develop! I'll keep you all posted on what happens! So, until next time... take care, enjoy, and G-d bless!
