Lines of Life
For some of my paintings, the meaning is hard to explain. I imagine with the subject and composition in a random and intuitive burst. I follow the bread crumb trail to see where it leads, and before you know it I’m done, not sure how to tell others about how it came about. My giraffe in the shower was such a painting.
Giraffes are outrageous creatures. I’d wanted to paint one for a while. Among their fascinating features are the patterns of geometric shapes on their coat. Their pattern was on my mind when another kind of grid caught my eye, in the aqua tiles of my bathroom.
Rather than remind me of a mind state, as had been the intention behind other paintings, I saw instead a concept. The continuity and interrelationship of all things might describe the idea that floated in the background, but I left it loose and malleable as I started on the piece.
Light shining from a window into the scene added another stratum of complexity to the picture. The tilt of the giraffe’s neck and the diagonal light shapes added crossing forms over the orderly grids creating layers of light and meaning.
As the piece got farther along, a narrative emerged. My beginning intentions were a marriage of formal and abstract considerations, but when a giraffe shows up in a shower, one can’t not make anecdotal correlations. Before I could get far putting a story together, my daughter reminded me that I’d seen this plot before.
Years before, she’d shown me a fabulous French animated video, that I’d completely forgotten that I’d seen. In it, several giraffes take dives off the high board into a swimming pool. It’s a graceful, gorgeous work of art.
The video had etched itself in my memory, tucked itself into a hidden corner, and pulled itself back together when I came up with this piece. I was stunned to watch it again, remembering how much I’d loved it the first time I’d seen it. From the very first scene the similarities are obvious. I was astounded at how completely it had vanished from my mind, or so I thought.
Once I got past my accidental copycat syndrome, I wondered what story I saw in my painting, divorced from where it came from.
The first narrative I saw was an indecisive giraffe, unable able to make a decision about whether to come out into the light or hide in the shadows. He thinks he’s camouflaged because his pattern is similar, but his color makes it stand out. (It’s not necessarily a boy.)
Even though the painting offers story opportunities, I still mostly relate to it on a more abstract level. I see pattern and color and contrast and complexity within simplicity.
This was one of my first paintings that reflected mind states that weren’t inspired by emotions, thoughts, or stories. At the time I was contemplating and connecting with underlying principles of reality, and they were coming to life on canvas. Words are inadequate to convey these concepts, (and surely paintings are as well) but human means of expression can at least point in the direction of higher ideas.
A poet could probably fare better than I can at putting into words the intricate ramifications of this piece in terms of the way forms and color interact to relay deeper concepts. But that’s why I’m a painter.
Existence is layered in dark and light. Lines lead in all directions. Colors contrast. Shapes correlate. Surfaces are smooth or hairy. Meaning is a veil that can cover the direct experience or consciousness of this tapestry. One could take in my painting on a more visceral level. One could breath it in. Leave the words alone.
The stories that we create help us find safety through understanding our surroundings. Our attachment to our stories can obscure the wonder and freedom of the interconnectedness that lies within and between all of it. I like stories, but sometimes I don’t need them. Just awareness and quiet is sometimes all that’s called for.
