Tree

It is an odd tree perhaps. The original "lattice" among my paintings, this picture, chaotic though it might appear, is not an accidental combination of things: it is the first iteration of the lattice image as a metaphor. As it appears in the photo at right, the painting is unfinished. It remains unfinished though it looks different now.

It was put together the way a quilt is constructed with the addition of one image after another. However, I also made preliminary drawings to sort out what it should include. And, it began (like another of my paintings) by being a meditation on the Hirshhorn's large Diebenkorn "Ocean Park." (Clicking on the title "Tree" will link you to the Diebenkorn image.) The first shapes on this canvas began with large green blocks of color as I quite literally tried to put Diebenkorn's image under this image as a contemplative scaffold.

The reason why a painting like this takes a long time to produce and why it remains unfinished (for the present) is that one needs the passage of time to get the ideas that will eventually make sense of all its separate intentions.