What's in a name?

-

Today, in my meditation, I had an insight. I was thinking about this painting that I painted (and sold) en plein air in Capitola a couple of weeks ago. Oh my! It's already been a couple of weeks! It feels much more recent. I recently read an article here about time and how/why it appears to go faster sometimes. More on that another time.... (no pun intended).

I was thinking about the title of this painting, and I realized the title has to tell a story that one can imagine and be in. The title should do more than describe what is obvious in the painting itself, what the viewer can already see. For example, I could have named this, predictably, 'Light through the Trees,' or 'Shadows in a Forest,' or some such - which is what you already see in the painting. That is the first thing that might already occur to you as to what the painting is about. But calling it "Meet Me at the Fence" now has a story. A story of two people about to meet, and here is their meeting point. The light through the trees is still there, and hasn't changed, but the painting is about much more than that. Sometimes, a title can trigger a feeling or emotion - it should do that - beyond what you see, and make you look again at what you might have missed the first time. Maybe you were remarking on the beauty of the light between the trees, then you read the title, and realize, oh! that's the fence where the meeting will happen! And the fact that the same light is also hitting the fence - coming through the trees to spotlight the fence, in a way - connects the whole composition together with the light.


Meet Me by the Fence



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connected shadows

-
Image
I have often passed by the Campbell Community Center/Heritage Theater and been struck by the beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with intricate ornamentation. Finally, I had the opportunity to paint it today with the SCVWS Thursday plein air group. I think I should have used a ruler for this as some of my verticals aren't parallel to the edge of the paper! I do like the purple/blue shadows and how the colored shadows blend into one another around all the bright white areas. As always, for me, greens are troublesome - they often look overworked in my paintings. But, I am pleased with this overall.                       “One Ticket, Please”
Read more

Faith vs. belief, and inspiration

-
Image
In yesterday's Gita session, we discussed the difference between belief and faith. I found myself saying that a belief was hard-edged and inflexible, and faith all-encompassing and flexible and always positive - akin to having a big-picture trust in the cosmos. When I heard myself say "hard-edged," it made me realize how many terms and ideas are so interchangeable between the world of watercolor (art) and spirituality (life). When edges are hard, the eye stops at each edge before it goes to the next "item." It's like stop-and-go traffic. You are making progress but it is not smooth, not a flow. When edges are soft, your eyes travel easily, from one object to the next because the divisions between the objects are blurred, and the values do the talking. It is like life, like consciousness. We are all one - not so hard-edged and separate - yet we don't know it, and bump up against one another because of our hard edges, fixed ideas and notions, prejudices an...
Read more

Design- vs. content-driven

-
Image
I've found that strong design-driven art is more attractive to me than content-driven paintings. Of course, the content or subject is there (unless it is truly non-representational work), but it is realized and recognized a split second after one has responded to the design. For this reason, subjects that lend themselves to being more easily abstracted - interiors, close-ups of anything, still life cropped just so - are more appealing than standard impressionistic distant landscapes where the shapes themselves tell you sky-earth-mountains-lake. A landscape can also be abstracted but I feel there is more effort in hiding or veiling landscape features for the slow reveal to happen. I've been working on this still life, and just starting with a notan helped me understand and crop shapes right away. Pushing some of the lighter shapes to the white of the paper helps with abstraction. Like a chess board where each shape is bordered by a contrasting value shape, or the way we typicall...
Read more