james-luscombe.com

day 001

feeling the urge

    I'm feeling that itch to paint again and it's rather strong. I've been thinking alot about what painting is to me, or rather what I hope to accomplish with it, well, maybe both. Whatever the case, I am not really interested in realism, that much is certain. I think this is in part why I don't typically do underpaintings. I find that there is something lifeless about paintings that attempt to convey realism. They somehow seem unbearably flat and uninteresting. If I want realism, I'll snap a picture.
    What I'm after with paint is the essence of something, the rough, random beautiful ugliness that a camera can't capture. I'm after the abstract, emotional color of life laid down in globs and chunks and splatters. I don't care if areas of previous layers rise above the surface, covered in subsequent colors. In fact, I want them to. I want some part of the process of stumbling my way through a piece to be evident in the end result, like scars accumulated along the way.
    This I believe, is the honesty that I hope for in my painting. The raw, unabashed truth of how any particular piece comes to be, or how I worked through it. After all, I paint to express the things that I have no words to convey. I paint to explore the deepest parts of my self. I paint in order to know myself.

version 2.0

the great fortune of misfortune

This is the result of my first, (failed), attempt at casting polyester resin. Although, on the surface all appears lost, there is something strangely beautiful about this object that I have created. Perhaps it is simply the joy of finally holding some semblance of my vision in my hand, after so many years of only knowing it another way. 

 
 

 
 
 

nothing ventured, nothing gained

Well, it's like this... my first foray into casting polyester was quite far from a "smashing success". It is in many ways, a mishapen trophy of failure, but I like that about it.

The perfection of the finished piece is not the lesson. It's the fumbles and foibles along the way that teach us how to see and truly appreciate the final incarnation.

from the zen jar