Week 11

Empty Hill, acrylic on board, 10"x 8"

A hard week. I usually do most of my painting on Mondays, but this Monday, my sister and her husband ran in the Boston Marathon. I was excitedly tracking them all morning and tuned into a live feed to watch them cross the finish line. The bombs had just gone off. From the amazing electronic tracking the race provides, I could see right away they were still approaching the finish line and not there, but after that the day was pretty much finished. After finally hearing from them in person, I went outside in the sun and weeded the garden. I painted this in the evening, a simple image, and somehow appropriate. Also to the history of the photographer below—he and his assistants took photos of many fields filled with another sort of emptiness. 

Mathew Brady, acrylic on board, 10"x 8"

Water Glass, acrylic on board, 14"x 11"

Perfectly imperfect. 

I feel that a painting is never perfect unless it has an area that is not quite right.

I've been citing the Greek myth of Arachne, (who got in trouble with the gods for 

creating too perfect a weaving) when my students get fussy about their work not 

being good enough, but looking up the myth I remembered I learned this from 

Navajo weavers and came across this lovely passage: 

Weaving was a trait passed from mother to daughter. You can still find that the designs on true Navajo rugs will always have a flaw in the pattern. This flaw is intentional, and the Navajo believe that this flaw allows the spirit of the blanket to have the freedom to roam, and for the blanket to never truly end.