As stated in the last post , It was my intent to use a hot palette on this piece to counter the very cool colors of the first Geisha.. I actually started off that way and was using very warm reds, yellows and orange along with white. It didn’t stay that way very long because I’m really not comfortable with that color scheme. It may have been fine for most people but it was too hot for me. The pieces I have done in blues are an exercise to force myself into another mind set but my natural range of colors are very Mediterranean.

Without thinking about it I began to soften the original color scheme. This piece was in a constant state of flux; adding color, taking it off, trying one thing then another, one layer over the other until it began to come into balance.  At one point I thought it was actually finished and I signed it. The next day I was dissatisfied with it and I whited the whole thing out so I could start again.

I am now back with a color scheme that is in my comfort zone. I think it’s finished.. We’ll see after I’ve lived with it for a while.

Geisha #2 Mixed Media 32″x 40″x 5″

I often try things in my work that make me a bit uncomfortable. It’s part of my philosophy of “I wonder what would happen if….” The same thing takes place in my sculpture where I generally work with the encirclement of major and minor space. Every once in a while I’ll take off in another direction to see what will happen.…only to find that several pieces down the road I am coming back to the same form I’ve been using for over 30 years.

There is an inherent sense of form and color in all of us. No matter how much we may experiment we always come back to our signature. I’ve learned not to fight it.

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