new painting This painting, Fusion (70"x24") took on a curiously Asian appearance at some point...due to my reluctance to appropriate anything I'm not culturally entitled to, I hesitated about this, but in the end I decided to let it flow. They're not easy to see in the photo, but I made some line drawings of tree limbs on the white panel, and these seemed to push the whole thing in an Eastern direction, though the colors had it heading that way already I suppose. (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

It's the old sponge analogy, that as artists we soak up many influences, and they mingle and are squeezed out in often surprising, unexpected and certainly unconscious ways. How often have we all realized well into a painting, "hey, this reminds me of...(some other artist, or style, or "ism")? And then wondered whether to follow that path or make an abrupt turn in another direction.

In this case, I followed the path that the painting seemed to be heading, and am pleased with the result. I'm packaging this up tomorrow and sending it to my New Mexico gallery, Darnell Fine Art. I'm hoping to keep Darnell, my most active gallery, supplied with at least a trickle of new work in the lead up to my solo show in July, though of course I'm holding most of it back. I'm feeling good about the first few that I've finished for the show, such as Coast, posted a few days ago...all is going well, and with daylight savings time, I seem to have extra energy to work longer now in the evenings.  ¶ 8:34 PM