Some notes on image-making
Sunflower Sonnet, 43 x 16, mixed media on gessoed paper and cardboard.
This painting started as a rather simple image of sunflowers.
I didn’t mind it but something about it felt not enough. It haunted me for about a year. But I couldn’t figure out what was missing. The pandemic swirled around us and other things and priorities rose and fell but I kept the sunflowers in a corner where I’d look at it now and again. Then I started thinking in sonnets again, just lately–as a way to mark space off in 14 lines/stripes, five strong marks per line or stripe.
Suddenly one night this past week I started marking off the stripes with masking tape, painted over everything, and confined myself to greens and yellow/golds, and later a bit of white.
Yesterday, as I was avoiding grading poems, I sat down with it and pulled off the tape, and this new version, much more abstract appeared. It felt right to follow this version of sunflower-ness rather than the other more representational one. It’s heavily textured now with so much paint and collages paper nearly everywhere. This one feels more complicated, has more energy in it, and may not be completely finished but feels nearly there.
Jeff Oaks 