Residue and all

Three views of a work in progress

    A big part of the philosophy behind my work is making something out of the residue of human existence and its effect on the built environment. There's something about the randomness of leftover marks and other interventions on buildings, in streets and other places that contribute to the story of a place. This appreciation for the residual material of life extends to my studio work, where I'm usually finding ways to reuse materials all of the time. This is often in the form of reusing panels that I use for paintings where I'll sand down old images and/or cover up those images to make new work. I like to save and reuse dried acrylic paint skins that accumulate on the plastic-sheet covers of my foam board and cardboard palettes. The same goes for excess paint; I usually mix it all together in a container, making a chromatic gray that's always unique depending on the mix of colors.

    I've been thinking about how I could use my paint cloths as art after they've become too hard and non-absorbent to properly clean my tools. The idea was simple: flatten the cloths as much as possible, use matte or gloss medium to adhere them to one another, and add drawings and paint as necessary. Sometime last week, I dove in and started figuring this out. I grabbed a bunch of the cloths, arranged and attached them in an off-kilter semi rectangle. I let the acrylic medium cure overnight, leaving the form a little stiffer and a lot easier to draw on with acrylic markers. I made  a series of glyph grids on the surface of various sizes and combinations. Some of the marks I made disappeared a bit due to the paint being absorbed by the places on the surface where the medium didn't take. For a first attempt, I like it, so far. 

    One thing that's I've been thinking about is how much mark making to impose on the piece and how much of the original paint stains should I let remain untouched or uncovered. I'd like to keep quite a bit of the original marks, enhancing them here and there. There's a lot of room for experimentation and since this is the first piece like this, it's tempting to throw a lot at it. However, that's not what I want to do. I don't want to overwhelm the work and will probably make another one out of some of the remaining cloths in order to spread out some of my ideas and not have only one bear the weight and responsibility for all of my ideas. Excited about where this could go. 

    Also, I have the work of painter Jason Rolf to thank for planting the seeds of this idea years ago after I followed him on Instagram.  I'm just now getting around to figuring out how this might become a part of my art making, but all things in their own time. 

TM