Wednesday Art Salon - February 3, 2016

"Under The Wire" (series of three) - mixed media on cradled hardboard, each 12" x 12". Ready for hanging.

It is four days post 30-day challenge, and somehow I managed to make three paintings!  In this case, I worked on them all together as one piece instead of as separate paintings.  It was luxurious to have many days to experiment, pause, reflect, revise, revisit and experiment again.

This series was inspired by a lone telephone pole in a landscape photo.  Normally, signs of modern times in a rural landscape image make me wince - I want either pure pasture or urban clutter, not a mixture.  In this case, however, the telephone pole was a dark figure in an otherwise light image, a bit haunting and ominous.  It captured me.

So I began making these dark marks on the hardboard with charcoal, a line of telephone poles over a distant landscape.  The marks themselves felt powerful and significant.  There are many, many layers of paint and charcoal and ephemera and ink on each of these pieces.  With each new layer, I re-marked portions of the dark figures.  

After sitting with these markings for the last few days, I figured them out.

"Under the Wire" (barely, just within the limit, just in time)... how the days can feel when there are pressures, deadlines, unexpected quandaries, traffic jams, medical issues, you name it.   And at the end of those days, when we've made it through, how remarkable it feels to have gotten there in one piece, still smiling, grateful for a soft landing.  The "wire" is there in our daily landscape, and we race to slide ourselves underneath it by day's end.

But the wire is not the largest part of our daily landscape - it is everything underneath it.  And the markings are a symbol to remind me not to overly focus on the dark figure in the picture.  Its presence is obvious. It is a reminder to turn my gaze to the rest of the image and enjoy its pastural calm.

​This series is available. Contact Jen at mailto:imajenation@gmail.com for more information.