genna knows best

Genna nearly never tells me what to do...in our art and in our life..so when he does I pretty much have to do it.

He's been pressuring me lately to make some more images in our "Yearbook" series. These are images created from old yearbook contact sheets from the 1950's. For some reason, I just was not feeling it; probably because I'm lazy and they're a bit more work than our other series. I finally broke down and began one late last week and am SO GLAD I did. I think I sparked something new here and am already headed on to another.

Here is "Pete and Repeat Class Portrait: Soft Plaid", oil on linen, 60" x 48":

pete and repeat

Lest you think all I'm doing is putting pots in boxes all day (this is almost true), I offer you my latest..."Pete and Repeat Class Portrait".

This is only the fourth or fifth time I've worked with the basic idea of yearbook picture contact sheets and it still holds alot of mystery for me, which is awesome. I don't know about any of my full time artist fellows, but for me it's easy to feel the bloom is off the rose when I feel 100% confident and comfortable about what I'm making.

This image was made by transfering individual portraits from a 1950's yearbook and then flipping them and using each portrait again (henceforth the pete and repeat title). When the time came to apply paint, I made no effort to match the pairs or make them unique but instead let each unit speak individually. I love that each character has his or her own essence and personality even without any facial features. My favorites are actually some of the units that are silouhettes only.

The exciting thing about this idea for me is making something dynamic and rhythmic that basically repeats the same basic form over and over. The palette I used was also quite narrow, relying on Genna's underpainting color for variety.

Here's a detail:



If you want to see a larger file of "Pete and Repeat", I'll be posting it on the website tomorrow along with a dozen or so other new pieces.

Headed for Houston next week. I think Genna will be thrilled to be driving the car instead of making pots 13 hours a day. Everything's relative, huh!