This is the current state of affairs:  my dining room table has been hijacked by the second wave of three dozen paintings in the lotus series, now called The Lotus Collection.  I have added thistle and Japanese lillies to this group, although all flowers are abstracted.

In addition, I have incorporated my game devices, which I totally love.  When I was on that Buffalo road trip with Penny, we chatted about verbalizing our visual language.  I feel like that explanation should be the same spoken as it is written.

The thing with me though – I know what every brush stroke means.  Every choice is deliberate, whether it is conscious or subconscious, and some of that is private, meant only for me.  Jasper Johns never really shared his intentions and I love that bit of privacy.

However, this doesn’t sit well with the powers that be who offer art shows in their galleries.  They want you to resonate with the masses and lately those masses are chronic malcontents.  Complaining about everything in society.  And misery loves company.

My paintings are flowers, but they are also autobiographical, and I’m a person who has climbed an emotional ladder.  I finally found a belief system that sidesteps fears and all the shitty stuff.  Seeing beauty in a colorful brush stroke or femininity in a ribbon, or familiarity in vintage game pieces – that is my art.

Meanwhile, just to be clear, these paintings are not finished.  They are on the operating table, so to speak, waiting to be finessed.  What I do at this stage is allow myself to walk away and then approach them with fresh eyes, discerning eyes, questioning whether the devices are enhancing the pieces or just covering painting mistakes.  The artwork must work as a collective group but also stand alone.

I am also awaiting some supplies that I ordered: more ribbon, the apparatus to add wire to the frames.  Can’t really move forward until I have all of the pieces to this puzzle.