Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Are you lost?

I was introduced to abstract art in college.

I took a few art classes because that's what the college people told me to take. I had some artistic ability, so why not. (Side note: it paid off when, twenty years later, I wrote two textbooks on landscape design and did the illustrations. So you know.) Anywho, I was doing the exercises, the gesture drawings and charcoal sketches and still forms. One class the professor pointed out how I had illustrated something properly when, in reality, I was super bored and just rushed to be done. I'm a genius.

So I didn't get most art. But there was something about abstract art that appealed to me. Not all of it. I don't get much of it, actually. I mean, some of it, the joke is on us. It's a green trapezoid, people. A green fucking trapezoid. 

Recently, I stopped by an exhibit in Columbia, SC to see a Jackson Pollock. Pollock, man. He was the one I got.



This was the first work I was aware of that featured free slinging paint splatters on a large canvas. Now I'll admit, I see some abstract art and, yeah, a three year old can definitely do that. A lot of Rothko's work... it sells for millions. Millions.

Related image

But Pollack, man.

It's paint splatters. It's symmetry in chaos. An interplay of texture and color, a balance in the untamed. I can stand there and look at it and get something new from it every time. I see something different. It's not everyone sees it.

But it's for me.

I've got my own studio now. It's set up on a makeshift bench in the backyard. Canvases are set side by side where I knife and splatter paint and let nature do the rest of the work--rain and wind, dogs and squirrels and whatever else wants to contribute. I haven't sold a single piece nor tried. I'd be embarrassed to try. But I lurve it. It's the kind of art I want to hang on my wall and costs nothing more than canvas and paint (which isn't super cheap; I mean, the math on that Pollack is awlot.).

It's what I dig.




In fiction and movies, I like the challenge. I like to be thrown into the abyss and figure my way out. It doesn't always have to even make sense. The Fountain, anyone?


So Book 2 in the Maze, this is where I'm going with this. The Hunt for Freddy Bills is a mind fucker. I'll go ahead and throw the curse words out because it's got that. The Maze, if you've read the short stories and Book 1: The Waking of Grey Grimm, is an exploration of reality and consciousness. In Book 2, you, the reader, will get be getting the mind fuckery.

The Maze has a purpose. It's more than money. It's more than a challenge. It's much bigger than any of that. Because there is no escape.

There never was.

GET THE MAZE





No comments:

Post a Comment