I once had a boss who could perfectly (and I mean perfectly) reproduce the theme music from The Twilight Zone. I can hear it now...
Something so astonishing has happened in my small world that it deserves an unplanned post. If you read my previous account (and you'll need to, for this to make sense), you're familiar with "Winter Window" -- the painting that just didn't come together. On June 15, I'd made the final decision to trash it. On June 16, I wrote and posted the sad story. On June 17, I was rummaging in a corner of my studio and turned over a panel that had its face to the wall. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a preliminary layout, transposed over a 10-year-old unsuccessful painting, of....an earlier try at "Winter Window" that I'd completely forgotten I once did. No kidding!
Click to enlarge and you'll see the grand plan.
Looking closely, I recognize in the drawing the paperwhite narcissi that I'd forced for blooms early in 2008 -- the year that the stability of our family routine was disrupted. I can remember now, sitting on the floor to get a close-up view at geranium level (vs. my recent failed attempt to imagine an even closer view). I'd obviously gone this far with the layout and then put it aside.
Already, though, it's much more promising than Failed Version 2010. The window panes are off-centre, and the spaces are more broken and interesting with leaf shapes -- I just might give this another try! Maybe I could work in a cactus, which currently occupies the window sill. Maybe those yellows (from the failed underlayer) could be kept for another recent addition to the window garden, a half dozen yellow kalanchoes rampantly returning to their wild trailing state. Maybe I could capture the vague tree forms outside the window. Uh-oh. This is sounding dangerously like getting carried away with cool ideas. I think there was a lesson about this I promised myself to remember...
*LATE-BREAKING* - This just received at the Twilight Zone post. To prove that many things are possible, my supportive and inspiring friend the photographer Judy Andrus Toporcer has used her wizardry to "paint" the photo source for Failed Version. Click on the image to enlarge it and take a look!
I'm absolutely convinced that there are forces at work which cannot be explained rationally, and now and then they exert their influence for good or for evil. Some things are meant to be, to happen, and perhaps your window painting is one of them. Serendipity is a positive, gentle explanation, and in the case of the preliminary layout for "Winter Window" a lovely way of saying, "Holy crap! Look at this! Deja vu all over again!"
ReplyDeleteI look forward to whatever painting develops from the energy of your discovery.
And, by the way, I love the foxglove and friend pic.
: ) And thanks for the link!