Building Bridges
March 13, 2009 by Janice · 6 Comments
All paintings have access points. Places where we are invited in. It may be the thing you notice first. Or the part you like the best, or even the subject chosen. But all paintings have access points. Some are even hidden, but they are there. There has to be a bridge that builds engagement. That’s even true for the artist. Where do I enter the piece? How do I engage? Where do I start? We start by remembering that a painting is just as much about you as it is about me.
Good art happens in that space between you and me.
So we are about building bridges. Bridges from one heart and mind to another. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It has to resonate truly with me to even get done, but you, you are always in the picture. See the yellow in the photo? Those are the beginnings of some cactus blooms.
But they are the beginnings of that bridge between us.
Yes, in watercolor for example, we have to work light to dark because it is transparent. The medium dictates a certain order of things. Traditionalists build that way strictly. But I did not study with traditionalists. Oh, I studied Homer and Sargent and all the rest, their work is lovely in this medium, iconic even. But I worked with Forrester and Scott. They were about building rhythms.
Using color to build the bridges.
Like Kandinsky and Miro and Welliver, and Brady, setting up color and movement is more important. So when that blank piece of paper is staring me right in the face, I am looking for the major color actors, and the interactions I will set up. The foundations onto which I can build. And the flow that occurs between them.
That flow, that’s where that bridge leads.
The better I set that up, the more I think of how it works, the more the piece will extend itself, reach out, like an invitation. An invitation to come along. See something else. Look at something another way, to feel a little of what I feel, say, ah, yes, I get what you mean. I know that part, I feel that too. Yes. An invitation to engage.
Next time you look at a piece of art, look for the bridges, the parts that reach out to you. The ones that catch your eye. There was a person behind that trying to touch your heart.
I hope there is some Naughty in your plans for later on. Me? More puddling rain here in Texas today, more puddles to make with the paint. But Naughty is on my radar, says the artist with a smile.