2:17 PM: end of my painting day. there's a break in the thunderstorms moving across the valley, so in about an hour we'll walk up north crestone creek trail.
increasingly, the sharper, more defined look of the earlier gaze series paintings is transitioning to this more diffuse, mysterious look, which i associate with the pompeian frescoes i so love. of course you could argue that, when they were freshly painted they were much sharper & more focused, but this is just where i'm at in my aesthetic. gaze 2 is not yet resolved, but it's closer than a few days ago, when the figure of vermeer with his back to us dominated, and left little space for mystery. when it comes down to it, i don't really care why this series is taking this path. what matters is that i find it far more visually rich and satisfying when suggestion and innuendo reign.
eventually, the owner of this painting may not know just how many layers of paintings underlie what they are looking at every day. but that story is alive, i believe, and can be sensed. the final image; the final painting surface will vibrate with the twists and turns of the story that lies beneath.
noon: MODEL OBLITERATES PAINTER!! in a rare case unlike anything authorities have ever seen, a leafy hatted model has obliterated a painter. while some bits of the painter, who, curiously, has his back to us, remain, he has almost completely disappeared, leaving only faint traces of his cap and red stockings. confusion reigns, as the art loving public scrambles for answers!
BELOW left: immediately post-scrumble. RIGHT: the leafy hatted model triumphs....who knows for how long!
8:04 AM: i may have been too hasty yesterday afternoon when i declared that all traces of gaze 2 would be obliterated. it does need something, but something perhaps less radical than a complete re-work. if you look back at the development of all previous gaze paintings, you'll see that the pattern is a series of reinventions which culminate in a subtle, layered surface which leaves space for the imagination to roam free. gaze 35 is the best example of this. that's not to say that gaze 2 will follow the same path. but it might. we'll see in a few hours. we're walking up the trail this afternoon at about 3:30, so that's my window.