Open your eyes.....or windows

Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.

Fenetre   oil/canvas board   8 x 8

Alan Alda

I have always loved the spiritual quality of windows and doors. That follows my natural inclination to personify inanimate objects, such as houses and cars. What child hasn't made a face with windows and doors on house drawings? Perhaps I saw Fantasia one too many times. Whatever. In the feng shui world of harmony, windows and doors are key ingredients to creating a harmonic interplay between the indoors and out. In my painting world, I try to create harmony between the subject and its background, or counter-space, by creating "windows" or openings between them to ease those transitions. In other words, I don't much enjoy too many hard edges. Andrew Wyeth's windows make us, the viewers, into voyeurs. His windows and doors have a mystical quality. The home of first place Team Germany in this year's solar decathalon had few, if any, windows. Good for net energy. Bad for feng shui.

Today begins my annual CLEANING OF THE WINDOWS....not an easy task in this old house of 6 over 6 panes in each one. It is fulfilling, however. I like the reflective quality of clean glass during the dark season. I plan to challenge my assumptions as I work.

The Yin and the Yang

Japan Tea   watercolor/gouache   9.5 x 14

To me, painting is a balancing act of all of the design principles that make up our visual language. The notion of feng shui interests me a great deal in that "negative space" is a cherished goal, one that considers "what is to be", as well as "what is". It seems to me that we Westerners like to control many things, even our paintings....that is the Yang, the masculine. My paintings make me happiest when I am able to relinquish a bit of that control and allow one stroke to lead to the next, etc. That is the Yin, the feminine, an openness. My goal is to use a bit of both for an overall feeling of harmony. My daughter-in-law is a children's clothing designer for The Tea Collection, a collection that is inspirational due to its multicultural flavor. She just returned from a trip to Japan, and we were treated with a slide show of photographs that she had taken. A calm fell over me while I watched the show. When is the last time I really took the time to savor a cup of tea and a few slices of orange? "Japan Tea" was inspired by a vintage tray made of paper mache, highly lacquered and, of course, made in Japan.