Diagrammatic Cloud, 2005 oil and graphite on clayboard
20"x64"
“..Shadowy indistinct, Indistinct and shadowy Yet within it is an image Shadowy and indistinct, Yet within it is a substance. Dim and dark, Yet within it is an essence..”
—XXI Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu
Notes
on a studio visit
Light
coming through dense trees
A clearing in the woods
Layers of sky
Nature
reduced to base elements
Three panels: Yellow, greenish black, pinkish scumbled white,
titled: “Third Entrance”
the ghost of Blinky Palermo pacing downstairs
Poured paint, invisible poles, portals, entry into emptiness
Early Renaissance triptychs, three panels in dialog,
sent to the center by the sides, to “the dark secret heart"
giotto; the brightest red has an underlying darkness which secures it
to the panel,
seeking
the less significant touch, the more impersonal mark,
Restraint as important as expression, stepping away, holding back,
reigning in, taking it down to the light of the clay ground.
Heavenly space at the center, ethereal sky blue exhaling
vastness contained
crumbling Venetian red walls, decaying Roman stucco, taste of
pitted black iron, deeper Holbein blue, watery glazes of moss and
lichen green
