It occurred to me today working away in my studio, how much a lot of artists have deliberately moved away from the mark making traditions of earlier artists. If you look at Picasso's work there is plenty of evidence of his touch . Now we have Jeff Koons who does everything he can to remove his personal contact , literally having other people make his work for him. What is going on here? I can only surmise its another example of humanity going away from what is inside in favor of the other, the outside. There is more than a little indication of some kind of self hatred going on here.
I remember years ago making Christmas ornaments for the tree, we cut out shapes and put glitter on them. One of the group, voiced her active dislike of these homemade efforts. She would rather purchase Hallmark ornaments made in China. I love the homemade look and still put these decorations on our tree each year, once I'd rescued them from the trash.
I always value the touch of humanity in my work and strive for that strange mix of characterful mark making, balanced with the effortlessness of a finished piece.
At the moment ,I have again taken a drawing that has been around for several years, out of storage and put it up on the wall. I had started to think about it again, with all the comments from my Open Studio,about did Aliens come to our planet and interbreed with humans to form another strain of humanity. The piece is a large triptych and features a heart ,a fetus and an octopus. I had put it away because I couldn't finish it. I started to think maybe the octopus was the Alien creature, they always seem so intelligent when I look into their eyes at aquariums, where they are usually squeezed into too small tanks. I thought maybe I could fit the piece into the title of "Primordial Ooze ". I started to cut out other creatures from tracing paper and attach them. I did a lot more to the triptych and have come to the conclusion that its too worked so I have separated it and added another half piece of paper. I do this quite often and have come to think of this process as letting the drawing breathe .The journey with this work has been a long one, hopefully I am near the end.
