Curtains

oil on panel

24" x 18"

Another form of the square or the box in my work is this curtain. It is essentially a rectangle billowing in the breeze, inspired from a curtain hanging in a door of a stage at the Sterling Renaissance Festival in New York State. While waiting for the acrobat, Daniel, the Duke of Danger (GREAT act, by the way) I became instantly mesmerized by the form. That happens with me - sometimes images come in a flash, either imagined or triggered by something in view. I took out my sketchbook and studied the form in the wind, also intrigued by the darkness behind it. In reality the curtain was patterned, but in my painting I wanted to have it be white (it is white with grays made of green and pink). It retains a carnival feel, and I think I managed to capture the pull it had for me, an archetypal form. My first year of graduate school I painted three pictures of my grandmother hanging the laundry; only one was successful enough to keep. The figure held the ends of a sheet, attaching them to a clothesline. This billowing shape isn't new to me. It is interesting to forget about something and have it return. I look forward to seeing what else I've forgotten.