unwritten

What does it mean for my paintings to emphasize the frame?

What does it mean for an object to break the frame?

With things being cut-off in my paintings and my writing, I talk about how something happens outside of the frame. When I write a short story, I only focus on a highlight of a person’s life --it’s assumed that there’s a whole life there, and I want that for my paintings. I have a story that I want people to enjoy, but I think the right kind of viewer will. You have to really care. There are going to be nuggets that you can get from just the paintings, but more if you read the narrator’s intro, and more when you read the book. And also, there’s sometimes more info in the painting or set than in the short story. So there’s a give and take. But if it’s gathered that these are narratives about characters or households and people can enjoy the paintings as they are or make up a story of their own, I’m perfectly content in that, too. But how do I show that there’s more outside of the frame? All of the paintings (?) have some sort of object cut off, except for the small square paintings --so maybe I need to keep that a constant --that they seem more captured, like a moment? Whereas the larger character pages are about the person? Maybe that’s it. Yeah, that might actually be it. I can’t tell you everything about Henry, but I can show you his old suitcase, his neatly-made bed because he has to feel like he can control something in his life, and three pictures on his wall --one barely there, as if it’s gone; another with a letter from his mom which he treasures --but for what reason the viewer might ask?; and three (notice the incorrect grammar and punctuation here) the child’s drawing hung by a tac. So there’s a story there right? I can kind of get a sense of who Henry is. The two chairs are fairly personified, but a rice cake, why would that be in there? That’s where the weird, oddly specific comes to mind. But are my objects metaphorical? They’re not swimmers or big waves. What do these things have to say? Old curtains --time? sentimentality?, coaster, child’s pool --innocence? Pile of papers --communication, trouble communicating? Table saw --hopefully a play at constructing. Dominos --effects, collateral beauty..I don’t know, I should do a cold read of that actually. The objects. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Think about who would have these objects though. Definitely a family like mine and not by best childhood friend’s family. They would have built a pool in the yard or had a boat in the front lawn instead to take to the lake. And the person who freaks out and gives her rice cakes and animal crackers away because she couldn’t stop herself from eating because she couldn’t handle the silence and stress. The same person who eats frozen Healthy Choice meals. It’s a type, whether you disagree with stereotypes or not. Who am I talking about and who do I want to relate to? We paint what we know.

I’m working on thinking about the painting as a painting while considering color palette. They wouldn’t necessarily be those hues in a real house.

Cutting off words brings in pictorial to the textual, which is the inverse of pictorial to textual --narrator’s intros

I need to re-watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind --probably not just listen to it. Think about things unwritten, unfinished..

Paint dominos into rug like they match and sink in. That rug I’ve gotta figure out, it swallows the acrylics. Spray paint! That’s the one. I wasted mucho acrylic paint.

I have a frame within a frame, with a border, a picture, a window.

Look at printmaking and illustration with a border. Am I moving away from Cindy Sherman’s stills and thinking more about the image serving as text on a page? Yes. Look up border and illustration, the printed nature of books.

I want the paintings to feel constructed but believable. I could relate to this, I could see this object in my house. But things happen which you wouldn’t expect --like the weird tablesaw next to a child’s pool moment or the wooden musical frog. The shoes that match the imaginary creature drawing? In being very plain and unfinished.

Continue with layers and ghost images mirroring a revision of writing.

Thinking about Thesis Paper...

Constants in my work: fictionness, constructed spaces, presence of people only by objects and lived-in qualities, connection to literature and a phrase, additive process, describing a world which the viewer can’t completely access, being human --the things that connect us together like the stories which connect the characters, short stories and concepts of, complacency and acceptance and trying to be a good person despite circumstance.

Life imitates art. Think about the role of fiction and my role as a painter and story-teller.

I want just indications of people. The feeling of being alone in a space? x-ref my window with Matisse’s Red Room --is it a painting, a window, unification of walls? Is there sky behind or just a backdrop or is the otherside of the window painted sky colors? How faux is it?

of writing and painting.