As I sit and work on my paintings, I often wonder how many ridiculously tiny squares and dots I have painted over my lifetime thus far.  The detail and patterning is very time consuming and it takes a long time to complete one painting, even a fairly small painting.   

In recent work, I have been exploring notions of time and memory, using two-sided drawings in gouache, pencil and dye on paper, to explore the passage of time and the hit-or-miss snatches of memories that our brains recall.  I’m amazed that I can look back at old slides of my work and sometimes not even remember doing a given painting.  It’s as if I’m looking at another person’s work!  The two-sided drawings were created as part of a book that was worked on in its whole state, and then disassembled when complete.  The text that is seen in the work was contributed by my five-year-old son. As such, it has personal relevance to me as part of my memories and the quotes, when taken out of their original context, may take on an absurd or dream-like quality.  Similarly, the pages which have been separated from their “whole” lose their context and become mixed up all together, just like our memories.

In my current body of work, I am making the work even more about time.  I’m very interested in bloggers and how the seeming minutiae of a person’s day-to-day life can somehow be interesting.  I am working on a project where I complete one 4” x 6” drawing in a day for 90 days (not necessarily all the days will be consecutive!).  The 4” x 6” size is selected because it is the same size as a snapshot.  Each drawing is an impression of the day, a mood shot.  Some will be simple and some will be more labored, but each one must be completed on that day.  The completed 90 drawings will be installed together as a large group and the many pieces together will become a whole that represents a visual record of one person’s life (moods, artistic inclinations, etc.) for a period of 90 days. 

The second phase of this project is to execute three large (72” x 40”) drawings that are each worked on for exactly one month.  Even if the overall composition is planned at the beginning of the month, the intuitive selection of colors and patterns as the piece evolves will be more mood-based decisions.  I am interested in the difference that will be seen in the work that has been divided into small bits of time and then seen as a whole, versus the accumulation of the days in the three larger pieces.  The psychology of the artist (me) comes into play in the two phases; the first gives me the satisfaction of doing a complete piece in a day but limits my involvement, the second denies me the satisfaction until the month is up, but gives me more of an opportunity to sink my teeth into the work.  As a whole group the drawings will record the reality of the time that I spent working over a period of six months worth of days.