Meditations on vastness

Just under 4' x 8.5', Because Blue Always Forgives Red is the first large-format painting I finished last fall. I had a couple of other large canvases -- Blue Flame (4' x 5') and Rain At Dawn (4' x 9') -- in the works at the time, but this one I finished first.

I painted it for my sister, Carrie, who passed away in 1996 from cancer. It pretty much sums up how I knew and understood her to be -- carrying a great deal of weight and troubles, but still able to flow through it all with remarkable energy and grace.

Until last year, I had never seriously considered painting on canvas. It always seemed like such a big deal to me. And messy. And where would I work, anyway? But I got all fired up when my friend and fellow painter extraordinaire Stone Riley prodded and cajoled me into at least trying it.

So, I did.

I went out and bought some supplies, trucked them home, and we threw together some frames, stapled canvas onto them, and gesso'ed the heck out of them. Then we let them sit, and I started work on them a few weeks later. What came out of it all both surprised and frightened me a little. What I got was a wide swath of abstract colors, and two intensely dark works that just exude vastness.

I'm not sure where these two dark works "came from," but standing in front of them makes me want to fall to my knees in that abject sort of veneration I imagine the ancients felt in the face of Great Mystery. Whenever I show them to friends, they are moved -- sometimes to tears.

I, myself, am sometimes moved to tears. The depth is just so ... there. I simply procured the supplies, put myself in the mood, and then showed up with the intention to serve whatever Goodness chose to manifest itself through me. I'm sure it sounds all mystical and whatnot... and it was.

I really can't explain it. You'd have to see it for yourself.

To date, I have yet to stretch the canvases. I have them rolled and I haul them around to show friends and acquaintances, when I get the chance. I'm always interested to see how people take in the big, deep ones. Sometimes they're afraid. Very afraid. And they either freeze... or they back away and leave the room.

I still have to get pictures of Blue Flame and Rain At Dawn. It's pretty tough to photograph them without proper lighting. In any case, they are much better experienced in person.

And that's what you have to do with them -- not look at them, not intellectualize about them, but experience them.

And the vastness.

Why Piet?

One of the smaller pieces I created in 2007 -- or was it 2008? -- is a piece I've entitled Piet_1, in honor of Dutch Neo-Plasticist Painter, Piet Mondrian (1872-1944).



Looking at a set of Google search results on Piet Mondrian, it doesn't much look like one of his pieces. It's not full of straight lines and straightforward colors. It's actually very different from so many of the square-angled works of Mondrian... at least, at first glance.

But on closer inspection, it does have some elements in common:

• Common elements repeated -- the curved lines that intersect


• Similar colors to many of Mondrian's works -- yellow, blue, black, red -- without a whole lot of inter-mixing. Even in the places where the colors coincide, they do not mix -- they remain distinct, even in their overlapping.


• Blocks of single color -- the black squares and the blue areas

It's almost as though all those years I spent examining Mondrian had made an imprint in me, and then blended and swirled... gotten "swirled" by my own individual sensibilities.

In a very real way, it's as though the images of Mondrian I've absorbed over the years had turned into an optical palette of sorts... a pot of paint that, when undisturbed, has the Mondrian imprint on its surface... and my life, full of its own adventures and experiences, then reached down into the pot of paint with its own stick or brush or baster, and gave it a big swirl.

Piet_1 seems to be what happens when the undisturbed, imperturbable lines of Mondrian are given a good shake by an active, evolving life.

This is one of my smaller pieces, being 10 inches (254 mm) Wide x 7.75 inches (196.85 mm) High. It's mixed media -- oil pastel and water color and acrylic on watercolor paper. If you could see it in person, you'd catch the little sparkles that come up from the acrylic paint that's thinned with water -- one of my favorite aspects of acrylics. They turn into something different with each substance you mix into them... in this case, they have a faint sparkle to them, which makes a nice contrast with the matte watercolor paper.

This is also one of my favorite recent pieces -- I'm really happy with a lot of the work I've produced over the past couple of years (which I'm now carting out for all the world to see), and this piece has grown on me. When I first created it, I thought "What the hell was I thinking? How... uninspiring." But then I took a closer look at it, I thought about it and where it came from and what it told me about my evolving style, and lo and behold, it really grew on me.

It's for sale, but it's not framed. That's for the next owner to decide on. I'd probably go with a simple Bauhaus-like frame -- maybe something metallic to contrast with the colors. It's a subtle piece, and I think it would do well with a very simple frame. Whatever glass is used would be best chosen for its ability to allow light through to pick up the sheen from the acrylic colors.

It's a happy piece, and I will miss it when it goes. But I'm hoping someone else can gain some happiness from it, as well.

As always, if you like this work and would like to acquire a similar work of a different size or slightly different features, I am available for commissions. Contact me at kaystonerATyahooDOTcom for details.