Irresistible entanglements

 

 

Big excitement on our street this week as equipment and supplies converge to hook up water lines to the fortress, er, big new triplex under construction down the block.  I saw this wonderful tangle from my front window and had to take a photo.  The foreman was roaming around, and I thought, "If he asks me what I'm doing, I'll say….by golly!  I'll say 'I am an artist and this is downright gorgeous'."  Well…far from challenging me, he took pains to apologize for any inconvenience and said the disruption should last only a day or two.

 

So I went back to being an unrecognized artist in my studio, where I was starting a new painting, placing some customers in a kind of setting in the Zodiac Café.  I planned to work for a more three-dimensional quality than my usual style – putting together over a coffee table these three people who I'd spotted in late 2019 in the lobby of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

 

 

Rather classic, right?  I made some preliminary sketches but rather than the three close-up heads I'd intended, the pencil kept veering to the three figures in their poses.  As I put down my first layer, the blank slate called out, "More!"

 

Okay!  Throwing all caution to the winds, I decided to place some art pieces on the blank wall behind the figures.  And I knew just who to invite to the party – they'd appeared as welcome guests in my holiday season Semi-Abstract Workshop.  First, "The Puppetmaster" –

 

 …then, the all-seeing eye of "Hand/Eye Coordination."

 

Between them, an understated mixed-media hanging, and now I was under way!

 

You might find this hard to believe – I did – but the Universe chimed in with a supporting vote.  I keep a stack of old torn newspaper on my worktable for wiping my brushes.  I pulled a weathered sheet off the top of the stack and underneath it was – incredibly!! – an advertisement from 2019 for an exhibit at the Museum of Anthropology, "Shadows, Strings and Other Things." 

 

My friend Y and I had enjoyed seeing this show in person, and now the MOA has made available the wonders of puppets from all over the world in this virtual exhibit.  (Read the directions in the sidebar or you'll find it to be a dizzying whirlwind):

https://www.shadowstringthings.com/exhibit

 

Well, that affirmation gave me a title for the painting.  Forget my original plan of close-ups and more three-dimensional realism.  Here's "Pulling Strings at the Z Café." (copyright 2021) – in what my friend A would call my "signature saturated colours."

 

Let's get a breath of fresh air and go back to the street scene – which looks more and more like a glorious semi-abstract assemblage.  Leonardo can have the last word:  "Do not despise my opinion, when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains of walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud or like places, in which, if you consider them well, you may find really marvelous ideas."