Things I Think About

Over our striving, our rooms, our houses; the beautiful ritual of the rain falling against the window, the voice of the wind, makes us remember a journey older than thought, deeper than death, a triumph, the secret ascension of love. The tasting of those things in our days and nights is the partaking of the sacrament of existence. ~Cecil Collins

A few weeks ago I stepped into my studio about to start a full day in there and I took a moment just to draw on some paper with India ink and write in my journal. I have always been a list person and I started writing a list of things I think about. I was thinking about how what we fill our minds with, is what our lives become. Filling the bowl, so to speak. Anyway, something clicked that morning of writing and drawing on little scraps of paper and I started playing around with my drawings on the table.

Which ultimately led to this painting, which was completed recently:

Things I think About
encaustic mixed media
20×16 inches


detail

Through my images here I’m trying to illustrate that my process is very fluid. There really is never a beginning nor an end. This painting may be done, but it is leading to another. In my head currently, but it’s there. I have wanted to make a painting with pieced together paper and paint since I create this journal I made back two years.

journal from 2011

And I actually do it often in my work without really planning on doing it that way. It’s the way I work. Very grid-like, pieceing together. I compare it to making a quilt- the way I work. Believe it or not, a lot of my bowl paintings have started with a broad and bold black brushstroke to form the bowl shape. It then gets covered up. But here you can see that I left parts of it showing. Evidence of my thinking/creative process.

A friend of mine asked me recently “So, how do you start a painting? Do you know what you’re going to do before you start?” And my answer is yes and no, not really. Sometimes I have a plan, but it usually changes along the way. And there is usually something that is on my mind while I am painting, and that ends up being the subject matter. What I said above is so true for me- one painting always leads to another.

Painting is a journey. It is the way I mark my path through life.-Virginia Cobb