Process and Paradox: Emerging Woman - Creation and Destruction in one stroke

This is a description of my ideas, thoughts, and process of my work, Emerging woman. 


As I was scanning the Internet for inspiration, I came across this image.  I found it very intriguing.  The over-all pose itself was tranquil.  She seems divine and pure.  She has a look of seraphic contentment that drew me in.

  This piece started out as something totally different. I messed around on Photoshop with the above image to create something more artistically appealing. I wanted to create more of a blurred image, like many layers of transparent film of the same image, each one slightly off-center, to create "blurred" lines and forms.  I also imagined an image that was still, motionless, and stark.  Below is the result and the image I was working with.

  I wanted to make the figure large and dominate the composition.  After making the frame, stretching the canvas, and priming, I attached large sheets of newspaper to the entire canvas.  I painted over the newspaper with primer, leaving some of the newspaper text and images showing.  Next, I transferred the image of the woman using charcoal.  As I worked, I began to entertain the idea of somehow ripping and tearing the canvas in some way.  One of my recurrent ideas in my journal writing is a theme that resonates within the primal, natural world, which is: "For something to live, something else must die."  This idea is simply fascinating to me.  As an artist, I create as I destroy and destroy as I create.  Paradox such as this is what spurs my obsession with art, philosophy, and mythology.  In this vein, I decided I wanted to literally cut the canvas and weave fabric in and out of it to create the background.  Earlier, in my journal entries, I did sketches of canvas ripped and cut horizontally with pieces of clothing weaved in and out of the canvas.  My thinking then, was more about how things decay and nothing material truly lasts, rather than working with the paradox of creation and destruction within the art process.  

  During the creation of this piece, I also knew I wanted to incorporate found objects and recycled materials. I had already begun to use those ideas by using the newspaper as the background.  During the creation of this piece I was also reading and looking at the work of artist Robert Rauschenberg.  I was inspired by his use of recycled materials and found objects, especially his "combines" and his transfer drawings.  

  So I began to cut strips of denim from an old black pair of jeans I had laying around.  Wanting to create more movement in the piece, I decided that weaving the denim strips diagonally would create the movement I was going for.  I then began to measure out the diagonal lines, so I knew where they would fall in relation to the figure.  Once the lines were established I began to make slices in the canvas at alternating intervals to create the "weave" look. Once the slices were made, I began to weave the denim stripes into the canvas.  I was excited at the results.  This was a time consuming phase of the piece and took a couple of weeks to finish.
This changed my ideas for the piece itself and it began to take a whole different direction from my initial thoughts and sketch, but I liked where it was going.  I was truly creating and destroying at the same time, and that is an extraordinary process to be apart of.
  The background forced my thinking in a different direction and I wanted to make the piece darker and really make the figure "pop" off the canvas.  I started to lightly and roughly painting the background.  Using lamp black and a mixture of crimson red and purple.  I began to paint darker and use turpentine to splatter on the canvas to create "open" spaces in the paint and allow it to run.  Then, I would splatter more paint and apply strokes of paint where I felt it needed more color. As the background became darker, the figure was being revealed.  I switched focus to the figure and started painting in the details. Throughout the process of painting, I continually splattered turpentine and oil paint on the piece to create texture and give it that "gritty" feeling.  
  As I continued this process, I wanted to add another color into the background. I also decided I wanted to have a rusty color to drip from the corners of each denim weave that was created.  I also wanted to add a harder element into the background, so I glued metal washers to the corner of each black stripe. I wanted to created the effect of rust and have the color drip down to create more texture.  The washers added a metallic element that i wanted, but I wanted that metallic feeling to spread more across the canvas, yet i didn't know how to get that effect.  I remembered that I bought this gold decorative paint from a store from a trip back home to Ohio.  It was a yellow gold which was a perfect compliment to the dark purple background color that was already established.
I stared adding blotches of this yellow metallic gold to areas of the background. This gave another dimension to the background and I was beginning to like what I saw, but the figure was still not popping like I was hoping.  I went back to apply darker strokes around the contours of the figure and this started to solve the problem.
  After the background and most of the figure was established, I turned my attention to the hair.  I knew I wanted the hair to be three-dimensional and wanted to use newspaper to create the fullness and dimensionality I was looking for.  I started gluing strips of newspaper to form the hair. Previously, I had dry-brushed sheets of newspaper with black oil paint and cut them into strips. I wanted the hair to be dark. It wasn't looking as I had imagined, at first.  I then added white doll hair that I found at the thrift store.  I started stuffing it in behind the newspaper.  This created some contrast and more fullness and it seemed to look more like I imagined it as I continued to add more of each material. Below is a picture I documented demonstrating the progress of the work at this point.  You can also see I started experimenting with a linear cross diagonal.  I used yarn to created the lines you see going diagonally from top-right to the bottom-left. I eventually used this same yarn to fill out the hair and weave it in and out with the other materials.

The hair soon became a long, drawn out process, but it was looking more like i imagined each time I added to it.  I began to also add strips of denim to the hair to create more variation and texture and tie it into the background to make the piece more cohesive.  As I stated above,  I started to add yarn (fine, thinner quality yarn) to the hair.  This made it work.  It created the fullness and form I was looking for.  It also made the contours of the figure pop off the canvas.  I started adding more metallic objects to the hair.  I added steel pins, brass shower curtain clips (I found at an estate sale), rusted out spoons (I found in my garage), these elements added detail that gave the piece more interest.

  Once the hair was completed, I felt the background still needed more movement.  Also, I wanted to tie in the metallic blotches of paint I had previously applied to the background. So I took a brush, dipped it into the paint, flicked my wrist, and flung the paint onto the canvas.  This created Jackson Pollack style paint markings.  The paint fell onto the canvas but still acts as if were moving as if it were captured in a photograph.  This solved two issues.  It solved the lack of movement issue as well as the lack of overall metallic element I wanted to suggest.  I may have splatted more paint on myself than the actual artwork, but it was worth it.

  I had issues with gravity forcing the hair to fall.  I had the brilliant idea of using spray adhesive to hold the hair in place, like hairspray!  I fussed and fussed and finally got the hair back to an aesthetically pleasing form. 

The dimensions are 60"x80" (5'x7')

  

Post-processed thoughts...

  The creative process is one that each of us engages in everyday, to some degree.  It is necessary.  Opposition and paradox is encountered through this process, whether the person is aware of it or not.  Opposing forces are at work to create something new, nature is our best example of this.  This process takes place on many levels.  The deeper it attaches itself to the core of who we are the more amazing life can seem.  We also become more aware of these forces in our lives and in the primal, natural world.  The forces of opposition are so simple we either take them for granted, we are to busy to appreciate them, or we simply don't understand why we gravitate toward certain forces.  The solar and lunar forces are at work in our lives, on a daily basis, and our lives are connected to those forces.  Usually we just go about our daily routine without stopping to internalize this aspect of who we are.  Masculine and feminine powers are and have been linked to the inherent powers of the sun and moon.  This is documented as you look back to the history of civilization.  These forces are tied to the eternal core of who we are as people and is an essential link to our inner being. I have concluded, for me, to be a masculine individual, I first must grow to understand the feminine aspects of human nature. This is why I tend to work with feminine forms and continue to seek images that connect to my inner psyche.  Who I am, my identity, is consumed by the opposing force, just as the light of the sun is reflected by the moon.