Working Title: Memory Stick (40 in x 16 in)

This didn't come about just because I had computer parts left. This came about because of my obsession with cave drawings, petroglyphs, and the human need to communicate through a variety of methods. I think that's ultimately why I thought to arrange the computer bits into a shape of glyph.

To make the glyphs, I used a cake-decorating tool. This was the first time for that experiment. I put the gel medium/lightweight vinyl spackling mix in the decorating tool and squeezed and guided it onto the canvas. Fun. It wasn't an even and completely predictable process, which, as always, is a good thing. That made the glyphs more interesting--starting in one direction and ending up somewhere else entirely. Let it go.

I first went over the marks with micaceous oxide. Then I floated in a wash of titan buff mixed with azo gold/quinacridone nickel. Then I went over the marks with the azo gold/quinacridone nickel. Nice and rusty looking. 

I had spent hours in the studio and wasn't sure of my next step. So I stopped to photograph for a friend and reaching for my camera saw some gel medium layers that had dried in the container and I had peeled from the side. I draped them over the circuit board and memory sticks. I think that's where it goes. 

Once attached to the painting, it still won't be finished, but it will be a kismet step closer.

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.