Since I started working with DNA imagery ,earlier this year , everything has changed again. I am having less doubts about the work I am doing. I am feeling less of the need to explain and more of the just keep working, its why I seem to be not writing as many "Notes from the studio". Usually I would be taking on some complexity and puzzling over it , doing a lot of questioning. Lately that seems to have gone away. I am continuing to mine an idea, that seems simple and maybe repetitive, but also it seems endless and fruitful.
I have always felt so critical of artists that seem to repeat themselves endlessly. The pieces that started with the "Bladderwrack series" seem to be continuing in many variations, for right now I am enjoying this. I do not expect it to last.
Well indeed, that series has come to an end, back to complexity and puzzling over it. I have been in my super hot studio, no A/C and a heatwave here in California, temperatures over 100 oF. I am working very slowly. I started with an idea about the five elements in Chinese astrology and how they relate to each other. The five elements are fire, earth, metal , water and wood,. It is interesting to me to understand how they relate to each other. So wood feeds the fire, the fire needs the earth to exist , metal comes from the earth, the water cools the metal and helps it to be extracted from the earth, the water feeds the wood and here we are back to the beginning. As I started to work I was thinking about the Hans Christian Andersen story "The Tinderbox", its about a soldier that comes home from the wars and finds a magical tinderbox, a little like Aladdin's lamp when rubbed, it grants wishes. It takes him to a cavern with three dogs with large saucer eyes guarding a huge pile of treasure , one is copper, one is silver and one gold. The series of three drawings proceeded and unexpectedly turned into the finished pieces see below.
