I like to work on several paintings at a time. Sometimes I am limited by space and sometimes I am limited by uncertainty about my current project. Either way, the only time I am working on just one project, is when I have just started painting again after a hiatus. I usually work on two paintings at a time and sometimes three. In my studio, I have two painting walls and an easel (check here for a longer description). This allows me the space to work on three medium-large paintings at a time.
From a concept point of view, I have a couple of different approaches depending on what I am working on. If I am preparing for a show, working on multiple paintings at one time gives me the opportunity to think larger about the body of work. I can start to build visual bridges between ideas and really layer within the overall theme (even if I am the only one who can read it). I find that working in this way allows me to take more chances as decisions about one work is emboldened by the decisions I made on the other one. And of course there is the connectivity of color and physical paint application that builds like a rhythm through a body of work.
In the two paintings above, I worked on them at the same time, for the same show and there are some real benefits of this in both the way the paintings relate and how there are distinctions. For example both paintings have bubbles (circles) in relatively the same place and in the same relationship to the figure. The cows have some real similarity in color but the birds have a different quality from each other. For me this is an important aspect of building a body of work or a show.
How do you come up with titles?
Coming up with titles is an area where I am of two minds. I have two distinct systems for naming work. There is the straight forward describing/numbering system. As in Cow #23, Meat Pod #1, or
Man with a Tower. Sometimes I combine this with a title that is somewhat suggestive as in "Cow Traveling under a Drippy Sky." Which both invites the viewer to relate ideas of travel to progress, locomotion, the act of monotonously moving from one location to another and so on. But on the other hand, here is a cow that seems to be walking and there is a big blue drip above him - like a sky.
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The other approach that I have to titles is the more literary approach. I am more ambivalent about this method as it can be quite corny and I flip flop on having the work tied to a specific idea. I had a show at the Heike Pickett Gallery a couple of years ago, the show was title "The Chase." Almost all of the paintings were titled after phrases from the same named chapter in Moby Dick. As in The Chase Day 1: Bright Bubbles Arose, or Chase Day 1: Flagstaff and The Chase Day1: Malicious Intelligence. These being the names of the two paintings above, Malicious Intelligence on the left and Bright Bubbles on the right.
Titles have often been a contentious issue with me. In one of my first reviews the art critic zinged me for my use of titles: "if he didn't give away the game with titles like "Cow Mythos" We get the point." - Frederic Koeppel, Conjuring with Cows - Sept.23 2005, Commercial Appeal, Memphis TN. I think I agreed with him. I tend to be more subdued with titles now, not because of the review (sorry Frederic) but as I have developed in the way I think about my work, I tend to rely more often than not on a brief description and a number.
For next week: (Sorry I was late this week!) When you are contemplating your work, where and how do you sit or stand? How often do you clean your studio, and does that affect your work? DUE: MARCH 14TH
Don't forget about Joe and Peggy!