Breaking Through: Step 1
Many of you may be aware that I spent a large portion of last year working on a commission painting of an architect. For various reasons neither the Cordair Gallery nor myself have not posted any but the most cursory, compositional images of this painting…until now. In this installment of the Artist’s Studio, I will be discussing the creation of this piece from its first conception in late spring of 2007 to its completion in October.
First, a little disclaimer. Last November, I had what could be politely described as a minor disagreement with my computer. Had I written this paragraph then, I’m sure the FCC would have had several full-time censors pouring over it with red ink before it met even the internet’s standards for civilized language. Even now, the details of the altercation are not pleasant for me to reflect on, and I have no reason to inflict then on any of you. Why then, you may wonder, would I bring it up at all? Only because in the midst of the chaos I lost a large number of image files, including about half my record of this painting’s progress. So, if you find yourself in the least bit irritated with any minor gaps in my commentary, or with the sometimes incredibly poor quality of some of the included images, feel free to fire off a polite letter to the good people at Microsoft and HP who helped to make it all possible.
And yes, I should have backed up my computer.
Back to the painting. I think much of the interesting work on this piece happened long before I put any paint on the canvas. Since the painting was a commission, and the client had a very specific but difficult to articulate idea of what he wanted, the composition underwent a considerable evolution during the planning stages.
When the gallery first approached me about the idea, I was told they had a client who wanted to commission a painting of an architect and his first great house which would be on a cliff, looking over the ocean. It would represent the first breakthrough creation of a brilliant career. To me this immediately suggested the more general theme of creation. I was also given some rough measurements of the space where the painting would eventually hang. I wanted to give a sense of the height of the cliffs, show enough detail of the house to hint at its overall style, and show something of the intimate relationship between the Architect and his creation. I came up with the following four compositional sketches, and sent them to the client to see if I was on the right track. You will see the obvious influence of Frank Lloyd Wright in the design of the house. Less obvious is the fact that I was thinking of the house as being under construction.
