Wednesday, October 1, 2008

This Old Blanket


I've been busy for a while, sorry for the delay in posts. I'm still busy, but I made a few moments for myself in the wee hours of the night (thanks to birthday cake and coffee) to finish this up.

This is a new piece for me, I'm attempting to work in expressionistic style, maybe a little abstract. This artwork is an homage to a knit blanket my great-grandmother gave my mother when we were very small. We would always cuddle on the couch with it when it was very cold, or we were sick. Most of the time it was pretty stinky, but it was home and warm so it wasn't all that bad.

Just as the individual stitches made up the blanket, and the individual colors make up this artwork, so the individual events of my life make up me.

I don't think is a very successful piece, in the 'classic art training' sense, as their seems to be some type of imbalance, or too much balance, to the distribution of color. Something about it feels immature, not quite fully developed as a concept. Then again, if that's so, it's a surprisingly accurate self-portrait.


I've left the very first panel blank - for dramatic mystery, or for the viewer to fill in their own color on my 'blanket' as a representation of this, your experience with the piece. That in itself is an event in my life, and the first event for this piece, so therefor the blank panel is the first panel. But also, the panel is blank to make room for God, for the unknown, for the mystical and mythic 'I don't know' about life in general. I don't know what goes there - I really don't.

Feedback is much appreciated.


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