December 10, 2009

As promised

Day One: The Reincarnation of The Last Abstract Painting
(in progress)


Not that you would have known I made a promise, because I deleted it this morning, due to the mysterious rant about my STBX that made it's way into my post via some kind of trance I must have been in while writing. I allotted way more time than I should have wondering if I had spent the entire last year ranting about my divorce in public. In a quick search I only came across maybe three posts that used the word directly. Four, if you count the fact that I referenced my first divorce. Not bad.

Nonetheless, here you have a day of working on flowers. It's quite a bit more than a day, because underneath, and behind the flower, is an abstract painting formerly known as The Last Abstract Painting, a painting that for all practical purposes was finished, but needed a higher purpose.

My covenant was to start a flower painting and document it at the end of every day.
Since I don't know how many days I worked on it as TLAP, we'll roll over the time clock and mark its reincarnation, (sorry, can't help it) as day one.

Begin:
Today I googled Manet's last flowers. Again.
Most of them seem to be at the Musee de Orsay.
There is a book titled The Last Flowers of Manet. It is available used. I have not ordered it. Yet.
I almost gave up on wanting to paint flowers, but I didn't.
I can't or don't want to start a painting by flowers directly- I need or want to have time to play on the canvas even if I am taking on a destination.
The more interesting the photograph, the less likely I am to want to work from it.
I am slightly intimidated by the history of painters who have painted flowers.
Flowers have a loaded history. So do landscapes, but flowers are so pedestrian and yet, there is something compelling about painting such an ordinary still life.
I feel slightly constrained by the thought of painting flowers, yet I want to.
I am going to document the painting and the process every day.
The flowers I painted were not really the flowers in my studio. You might have figured that out.

2 comments:

Carla said...

Stupid day job, I missed your rant. This post is pretty delightful.

M.A.H. said...

You didn't miss anything. I caught myself before I hit the publish button this time.

It's over.

Nov 7, 2020. Tears of joy and relief. It's been unreal and I'm ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. The desert has been tough. ...