10 Year Anniversary: The Painting Diary 27 of 30

Painting Diary 27 of 30: Collapsed Architecture, 2018

I’m posting this one today not because it’s one go my favorite paintings from the last 10 years but because its another paining that carried a valuable lesson. 

In October I was invited to come out to CoSM to paint at their annual Halloween party. I was super stoked to finally go see what Alex and Allyson’s place was all about and to see NY for the first time too. How did I manage to not go to New York my whole life? AND, Carrie flew out to spend the week with me. I couldn’t have asked for a better adventure on all fronts. New York was fantastic, I was instantly in love. We went to the museums and got drunk on inspiration and walked around and ate everything. Such a lovely and diverse city.

CoSM and the Halloween party was also a blast. I had a small sketch in my note book and a blank canvas and like a show-off, I set out to make something cool in only one short night. I thought it was going pretty well at first, I was painting with my hands, rocking the cool textures and really trying to ride that wave of not-a-care-in-the-world stuff that had worked so well in the past. Toward the end of the night my painting mana kind of petered out and the painting was pretty mediocre. I was dressed as a Jedi for the party but this time the Force was not with me.

Back home I continued to work on it, trying to dial in on the original feel of the little sketch I started with. I spent way too much time trying to save it. Finally I decided to kill it off completely and randomly started painting over it. Very quickly the painting (a scene with a shadowy figure walking into a moonlit landscape) was transformed into this abstract piece that I call Collapsed Architecture because it looks like a failed geometric experiment. As soon as I let go and relinquished control the piece quickly evolved into something that had life. It felt really good to let go of that original image and let it be another kind of painting. I was so relieved to be done with it and move on. Whats interesting is that so much of the first painting shows through since I didn’t completely paint it out, and so it’s vital that it was there as a starting point. I love the random magic of art. The path is the destination. It all counts.

Collapsed Architecture, Acrylic on canvas, 2018