On Abstraction.

When I back to school in 2009, I took my first college art class. It was Elementary Drawing and Design. The one everyone has to take.

I soon got addicted to the environment and the drawing itself. I'd drawn all my life, but the class gave me the structure and the feedback I needed to get better.

After a few classes I got the distinct feeling that I was meant to do something with all this. I had enrolled in an Intermediate painting class, as was the next in the progression for an Art Major. We had a project where we had to do our first "non-objective" piece. We'd done some abstractions of still lives, and I really struggled with them. I was so locked into the realism of painting, I couldn't break out. I was good at painting forms. I was good at light and contrast. I could make nice paintings of flowers and jars.

To tell me to make something that isn't something was a huge problem.

So I started making paint sketches. Blobby, stupid looking rainbow sketches. It all felt stupid and forms started showing up.

We were given a sentence to inspire us. Mine was "Losing his grip." So of course, my first instinct was to draw an open fist. My professor just shook her head at me.

Eventually something came forth

It was a paint sketch on butcher paper, but something SPOKE. And it didn't hurt that my professor came by and expressed her approval.

 And then,  I produced my first TRUE abstract.

"Losing His Grip" 2011, 23 by 23 on board. Ask for Price.

From there, I got inspired, and this same "form" showed up everywhere. In my notebooks, in other paintings, in quick watercolor sketches. 

Small notebook cover- ink and watercolor. Never for sale. 

Untitled Watercolor,  2011. 9 by 11 inches.on watercolor paper

Abstracted Still life. 2011 24 by 48 on canvas

Part II of Red Chair. 2011. 24 by 24 on canvas

And I keep going. When I'm confused and frustrated, I take out a Sharpie and paper and just move the pen. They always start out feeling ridiculous- as though I shouldn't waste the time or the paper. But them, things emerge and I start to feel it. 

18 by 24 drawing, with watercolor.

 And here's this mornings improvisation.

I feel like I'm getting somewhere with these, though I am often met with the question, "What is it?" 

I am trying to answer that question myself.