A Line in Winter

Carey Crane, January 14/15/21, 2017. 24 X 36″

I may have finished the piece above this winter morning. Continuing along the lines of the last post, Hommage in Collage, I am including some images of my Father’s 1960’s work and relating it to what I am up to now. At the conclusion is an example of my work done in Las Cruces, New Mexico, also in winter that I’ll compare to this 1/21 piece.

Dad’s strongest artworks posess a kind of a monolithic inevitablity. They hold up as a single, integrated, object or event:

Jim Crane, ~1967. 48 X 48″

My 1/21 piece obviously appropriates the radiating (arms, rays, petals?) from this Jim Crane. The radiating form appears to be related to the “Agave” and leaf forms of some of my other work, including this decidedly Fraught-with-New Mexico-Summer FiestaAgave:

Fiestagave ’12 , 48 X 36″

Separating the Carey from the Jim, my work tends to divide the picture plane – at minimum delineating a bifurcation of the plane, in some cases working from a grid. Some suggest “story boards” filled with a series of discreet incidents. At times, the goal is to have one area of the picture utterly unrelated in form to an adjacent area, yet working together as a whole. The results may run-riot.

So, when am I best able to exercise some restraint in collage/painting?

Shady Side, Maryland, January 21, 2017

In Winter.

Winter commands restraint. My collage/paintings drift towards opening up and “emptying out.” For me. The palette trends neutral.

Cold Winter days I work inside, in Shady Side moving to the small, old canning shed. The collage/painting balance tips towards collage. Some spontaneous tearing and cut-paper findings aside, collage is a more considered and methodical a process than the potential for spontaneity and free flow of paints. For me. In spring and outside, I’ll be slinging paint again.

Here is a piece made, also in Winter, in Las Cruces New Mexico, two years ago:

Blanco Verde ’15 LoLo Collection

Note the grid.

Here is another Jim Crane that works as a “single, integrated, object or event:”

Jim Crane, ~1967? 48 X 48

Deceptively simple to achieve. For me.

Carey