The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 1-7

The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 1-6

Each 5"x5" Acrylic on canvas 

The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 1 and 4

The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 2 and 3

The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 5 and 6

WIP-Where the Ancestors Abide 7

After the brayer layer, looking for forms to reveal themselves

The Source~Where the Ancestors Abide 7

12"x9" Acrylic on canvas

Perhaps it occurred during an Art Walk, first Friday of September, that a young woman stood in my studio, looking at my art and commented, "You go to the cave." I felt my source had been revealed. While, yes, it's there I often go in my art, it's not always obvious, and it's rarely asserted so succinctly by a stranger looking at the art I've chosen to exhibit for one of these events. That's one.

Here's two: Mid-November, I was talking to my daughter about having to be out after dark, as the dark was descending earlier and earlier. I finally admitted, "I just want to be nestled in my cave. Curled up in the dark, under blankets, with a softly glowing fire for warmth and light. For about five months." 

Now three: With another Art Walk and a weekend of open studios scheduled for December, I decided to explore going to the cave using a process I had been dipping into and contemplating how to push further. I had a goal to finish at least four 5"x5" paintings by December Art Walk. 

The paint: I have had this diminishing supply of gold gesso for something like 20 years. I had been rather precious about its use. I decided it was time to use it as my first layer on the canvas. Still being precious, I only gave it one layer. I knew I wanted my color palette limited. I started with the brown. Normally, I mix my colors from my primaries, and I'm pretty strict about that. But somewhere along the years, a tube of Burnt Umber and a jar of Raw Sienna made their way into my paint bin. I broke my rules. I applied the paints, thinly, and randomly on the canvas. I didn't wait for that layer to dry before applying my mixed perfect grey to a 2 and a 1/2 inch brayer. I squirted the canvas with water to create tendrils and see what else might occur. Then I moved the brayer twisty-turny, round about the canvas. I discovered that if I used the edge of the brayer roll, the paint would come off the canvas, and the negative gold lines would be created. The marks from the brayer were spontaneous and happened quickly. I was delighted by the effect. (You can get an idea of the process up to this point from "After the brayer layer" above.) After letting the paint dry, I studied the canvas for forms I wanted to accentuation and what I wanted to fall into the background or to be vaguely defined. I outlined the more certain forms with my perfect grey and filled in some spaces with the Sienna. 

Number 1 in the series was something of a gift. It pretty much just came through me. I rather marveled how forms nestled (there's that word again) into each other and morphed and moved as I looked at the painting. Dare I count on that spontaneous gift on canvas for the rest of the paintings in the series? HA! That would be a first.

Out of curiosity, for Number 2 in the series, after the Burnt Umber addition, not so randomly applied, but more in an arch formation, I added blue-green inside of the arch. After the brayer layer and study for forms to accentuate, I used quinacridone nickel azo/gold for outline of the blue-green forms. I played with shades of blue-green to further let forms move in and out. To create the shades of color, rather than using the usual white gesso, which I find to be too opaque, I used Liquitex Transparent Mixing White, which I sought out and am now a big fan of.

The process was the same for the rest of the paintings above. Some required more trust when forms didn't readily emerge for me. Instead, I would work forms as they started emerging through outlining and shading and trust that this would work compositionally and in terms of invoking some kind of meaning. Even when I was being most challenged, I was having fun just being fascinated by what came off the brayer. 

I will be going into the cave for this level of the spontaneous quirk, creating chaos and then staring into it, trying to pull out recognizable, interlocking forms of harmony toward seeking comfort. Seems to me that act of creating chaos and then trying to make sense of it is a very human endeavor. 

*Aside: The word "abide" in the title of these paintings holds complexity in meaning. I chose it intentionally.