7.29.2008

By Degrees




I'm working downstairs today as it's much cooler there - by about ten degrees. You can see my latest set-up above - as well as portions of some older paintings of mine; a still life (done as student work) and a self portrait.

8 comments:

a christian said...

the image looks like a watercolor.

Mary Klein said...

hmmm - interesting.

The image is a photo of my still life set-up of a coneflower in a little glass vase which is hanging by a string. There's a dark green cloth on the wall as a backdrop. It's partially covering up two oil paintings of mine. You can also see my blank canvas on the easel in the lower left. What you can't see is the light source which is a floor lamp just in back of the canvas.

I guess it is kind of a cryptic image now that I think of it. It got a comment from you, though - so it was good for something.

a christian said...

I enjoy the way you've structured the last couple of photographs (this one, the last one of Larose's, and the one you've just posted). I am curious, have you played with this sort of structuring in any of the string(?) paintings? I'm only familiar with the current paintings with the atmospheric(?) ground.

Mary Klein said...

If by structuring, you mean arranging a series of individual photographs in a certain way - time gets the credit for that as they were all photographed and posted very close to real time.

If, instead, you're referring to the composition of each photograph, that depends on what I was aiming to illustrate. The one here was taken very impulsively. I was amused at how my self-portrait ended up looking veiled. From there, I thought of sharing the image and the post somehow followed.

To answer your question, I would say yes regardless of how you define structured. These paintings have been posted in real time and they've been composed.

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what you enjoyed, but am glad you did.

Steven LaRose said...

Correct me if I'm wrong a_christian, but there is something about the two photographs that is compositionally or abstractly cool. There are planes and fields that flip in space. The thing in the side view pic of my framed piece is either up close or deep space or a grandpiano on edge. There is something wonky or catiwompus (sp?) about the set ups. Very cool. And yet the wall colors and frames and lighting are all "sophisticated" for lack of better term. . . maybe "handsome" but just "straight" enough to counter-balance the psychedelic depth of field.

I'm guessing what a_christian is wondering, and now I am is, you obviously have an eye or taste for space in these photos, and it is something much more complex than the figure/ground relationship in the paintings. I guess they are more like landscapes.

Mary Klein said...

I love the word handsome.

It is a grand piano (baby.)

I love the word catiwompus too but have no idea what it means.

Thank you both for your insights here. These paintings are very limited by their nature. Maybe I do need to add more elements somehow. Maybe that's what I meant by "something a little more substantial" in my comment to you, Steven, in the following post.

I apologize for the disjointed nature of this comment. I truly am thinking through my keyboard here. Thanks again for your thoughts.

a christian said...

sorry for my delay, for some reason I did not get your response emailed to me.

I was referring to the compositional structure of the photographs. The overlapping planes, space, and abstract forms. I would guess the composition was not entirely thought through, but rather a natural(?) inclination.

"Maybe I do need to add more elements somehow"

I hope you did not take my comment as an attempt to steer you, I was genuinely curious if you had played with pictoral structure in the suspension(?) paintings in the past.

Mary Klein said...

Thank you a_christian, it was good to hear this.

Here's an example of something I did in 2005. The black rectangle is a part of my piano again - from which the scissors hung. There are some other paintings from around this time that had more "pictoral structure" too. It seems I've continued, since that time, to reduce my "suspension paintings" - ridding them of anything besides the object and the background - even eliminating the brushstrokes in the background. And recently, I've gone to backlighting which reduces things even further - creating little more than a silhouette for the object.

This coneflower, the one I'm working on now, feels indulgent because it's bringing back some of those elements. It's not an entirely comfortable feeling - but that's ok.