Sue left a comment on my last post:
This is totally off the wall, but why not open the dictionary and take a random word and paint it? (Needless to say, I am neither a painter nor a creative writer.)
Perhaps unknowingly, she was right on. I do use words as entries, for me, into the painting process. I don’t use the dictionary, but the words are random, taken from the various reactions I have to the photos I have initially silkscreened onto the canvas and also from the thoughts arising as I work with the painting. Thoughts come and go endlessly, continuously, filling the mind, and here, spilling out onto the canvas. From there, that private world I have created, I bury them into the color and images that emerge.
Sue’s suggestion of the dictionary is not a bad idea at all. I’ve always loved them. We used to have a very large edition of Webster’s International Dictionary sitting on its special station in my childhood home. For Latin class, I would spend hours looking up the derivation of words. They became a world itself, the words. And now I use them, words, as doorways.
In my recent paintings (the last few days I’ve been starting some new work), the letters do seem to sneak in and become part of the imagery. Maybe it’s time to have them be even more visible.
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