Working Every Angle: week 3's painting

Sometimes inspiration takes time to come together.  Like the Clyfford Stills paintings in the SFMoMa permanent collection that I've been mulling over in my mind for years...

His paintings look like zoomed in, immediate, detail shots of fabric- maybe Ikat or Kilim. His paintings have haunted me for years.

THEN, one day, I saw this article about Melissa Cody during her December 2012 Artist in Residency at the DeYoung...

Melissa studied the museum's permanent collection of germantown revival style Navajo textiles as inspiration for her own museum project. This photo of Melissa looking up close at the textile made a light bulb go off. The rug is loaded with layers of color and pattern- that's just my style. And she's looking deep into the weave of the pattern to see how the threads meet each other- that reminded me of Clyfford Still's paintings...

I dug through the internet for Navajo style patterns and colors then set about recreating the diamond shape we so often associate with Navajo style.

I cut out the pattern in three stencils and began layering them on my canvas with bright colors and a close up feel.

Given more time, I'd like to sand this piece once it's completely dry and maybe add a triangle detail or change the background color.

But I'm liking the idea of moving forward without time to over-think, over-paint, OR over-edit my work. I'm sure you'll see more of this pattern, during my 6 month challenge, partly because I love the shapes and can see one of my florals motif's coming out of it, and partly because I spent the better part of a day just creating and cutting the stencils. There may even be a new pillow pattern emerging here...

I hope you're keeping up with your challenge (resolution) and feeling yourself changing as you raise the bar and add more color to your life!