If Kandinsky had had a Computer (each of the three pieces, made of four stapled on the back, 12 in x 8 in)

(No longer in inventory)

Two years ago, I moved to a very small apartment. I no longer had room for items such as an obsolete snowball iMac. So I called the local store: how much to destroy my hard drive and recycle the thing? $90! Oh no. Not I. After being counseled by Gregg Coad, IT extraordinaire, I purchased a tool kit for deconstructing the computer for $20. See how that works? I'm $70 ahead. And I started taking the thing apart. 

Once inside, I saw potential. The screws were so many sizes, the circuit boards were aerial views of cityscapes, there were knobs and magnets, a prism, cd turner knobby thing, copper tape, and things I had no idea about. This ignorance led to only one scary moment when I had to come home and google a warning phrase to see if I was doomed for delving into parts unknown. (I wasn't.) Then Gregg gave me a few items that he had culled from computers he'd had to deconstruct. I started arranging parts on each cluster of canvas. And got a back and neck ache gluing the parts into place. 

At some point in this process, probably before the trip to the chiropractor, I lost my way. What was I doing? How is this art? How is this an expression of my truth? Suddenly, this activity seemed meaningless. So I did what I often do when feeling this way, I started looking at the images in my Kandinsky book. I realized that these shapes had a lot in common with some of the intriguing shapes that Kandinsky had made in his abstract paintings. I had it. The title for the series: If Kandinsky had had a Computer. He'd have taken it apart an used it...maybe...maybe his arrangement would have been more spontaneous than mine. But once I had the title, I could move forward. And truthfully, this is a part of my truth. I look at things and ask, what else is it, how does it relate to the other else thing I'm looking at. How is it part of a different whole. 

Inner Idea Artists: Beauty Follows Truth--Montserrat Contemporary Art Gallery

In addition to the four paintings in the Eroding Foundations: Tableau series posted below, I have sent eight other paintings to be in the Inner Idea Artists Exhibit at Montserrat Gallery. I am sending the 18 inch squared paintings from the Splitting Open the World post and three new 28"x38" paintings:

These are titled Caesura 2, 1, and 3 in that order. These are more mark-making through rubbing the unstretched canvas and then applying washes to the surface. This process knocks me out. The title is a literary term that means a pause in the rhythm in the midst of a line of poetry. I've recently discovered that it's also a term used in music. It seemed that there was a break in the paintings to let the light through--that makes it appropriate.

So the show runs from Oct 4-22, with the reception on the 6th from 6-8. I am honored to be showing with eleven other Inner Idea Artists, all who paint in the Kandinsky spirit. And it's going to be a grand event to see Monse and Victor at Montserrat once again. Lovely people.

And when the party is over, I will be in my studio, making marks on canvas via this process that I am absolutely in love with. It all started when I took Peggy's Zehring's class that one week in 1995. Brilliant move to sign up for that workshop. And Peggy gives all the credit of her magical teaching to Kandinsky. Following that means I live my most passionate life. Thank you.