Working like mad

Starting from the top Trapped In 3 (in progress), Compliments 3, Compliments 2 and Trapped In 1.  I also finished Trapped In 2 and Compliments 1, but their photos didn't turn out to my liking.  I'll post them at a latter date.

Trapped In and Compliments are really the same series.  I just wasn't sure if I wanted to go 1,2,3,4,5,6,7... Also, there is a shift midway through.  Originally the buildings in the background were just that - the background.  As I kept going they became more important and the foreground of a empty lot in the middle of the city that people cut through to get place to place became more apparent.  By the time I reached the fourth canvas I realized that the people were actually the props and not the buildings and the empty lot.  There will be three more as well with a focus on the liter in the empty lot i.e. crushed soda cans etc..  Hence the name Trapped In, the empty lot is a piece of nature that is trapped in by the city around it.  Of course originally I thought of it, because I was listening to Trapped In by Division of Laura Lee when I was sketching the series out.  I find that there is a synchronically logical reason behind my naming practices no matter how random, silly, mundane, and weird as they seem to me.

How I name work is one of four ways.  First there is that magical name that pops in my head when sketching or painting and it happens about thirty percent of the time.  Funny those are the names people object to from time to time.  Second I name paintings based on pieces of music, song lyrics, or literary titles or passages fifteen percent of the time. Third I use visual cues within the painting when text elements have been collaged in thirty percent of the time (people just scratch there heads with these names). Lastly, I sit down with a dictionary and randomly open it and read through the words on the two pages I've opened to and figure it out the rest of the time (my main way of titling work since my freshman year in College).  No matter how random the title seems I find out latter on that it's spot on. Frankly, I don't think there is a right or wrong way for artists, writers, musicians, and other creative people name works of art.  I also think that the work has it's name from the get go and we're simply figuring out what it's already named itself.  I'm a romantic.

Crazy week between figuring out the tax stuff and the neighborhood meeting I lost three nights of working total.  Not a good idea at this stage in the game of preparing for a show.  Oh well, life happens and is great at getting in the way of things.  Must simply adapt and move forward.

I also started three other new works over the weekend.  I had about eleven canvases going on at one point, but now I'm back down to six. This will be a easy week and a week where it's easier to photograph stuff as I go.