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Dec 6, 2023
Media: oil on heavy Fabriano paper
Size: 12x18.5 in
When I was in graduate school, learning (not very successfully) how to handle oil paint, I decided to paint over some of my 'failures'. I sanded down the painting on the canvas (a toxic endeavor, didn't wear a mask), and then I painted a layer of white gesso over the surface in order to begin again. My advisor came by my little studio and freaked out..."What are you doing? You're 'wasting' all of the beautiful colors that you've already put on the canvas! Just begin again, and let all of the previously applied colors peek through the new work. It will only enrich the painting, AND there are often some beautiful serendipities that happen between the old and new bits." Now, many years later, I think about what an incredible life lesson he was teaching me. And I have embraced this philosophy both in my painting and my life (full disclosure, I don't always do this bit quickly OR very willingly). I now believe that EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING that has happened to me, makes me who I am today, and even stuff I'd prefer to hide, peeks through and 'paints' the full picture of who I am. Are there things that I wish I could undo? For sure. But man, those things all serve to make me a richer, more vulnerable, more inclusive human being. And truly, I do want to be that sort of person. So yesterday, I started painting over an old painting, and got to a certain point, and just stopped. I was painting a still life over a figurative work, and bits and bobs of color were still peeking through, but there was a 'dynamic' feeling about the new still life that I quite liked. It was a visual of 'moving on', 'change'...that place where we find ourselves not quite into something new, but not in the old place either. I decided to practice trying to be comfortable in that uncomfortable 'in-between' place. When I was in graduate school, learning (not very successfully) how to handle oil paint, I decided to paint over some of my 'failures'. I sanded down the painting on the canvas (a toxic endeavor, didn't wear a mask), and then I painted a layer of white gesso over the surface in order to begin again. My advisor came by my little studio and freaked out..."What are you doing? You're 'wasting' all of the beautiful colors that you've already put on the canvas! Just begin again, and let all of the previously applied colors peek through the new work. It will only enrich the painting, AND there are often some beautiful serendipities that happen between the old and new bits." Now, many years later, I think about what an incredible life lesson he was teaching me. And I have embraced this philosophy both in my painting and my life (full disclosure, I don't always do this bit quickly OR very willingly). I now believe that EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING that has happened to me, makes me who I am today, and even stuff I'd prefer to hide, peeks through and 'paints' the full picture of who I am. Are there things that I wish I could undo? For sure. But man, those things all serve to make me a richer, more vulnerable, more inclusive human being. And truly, I do want to be that sort of person. So yesterday, I started painting over an old painting, and got to a certain point, and just stopped. I was painting a still life over a figurative work, and bits and bobs of color were still peeking through, but there was a 'dynamic' feeling about the new still life that I quite liked. It was a visual of 'moving on', 'change'...that place where we find ourselves not quite into something new, but not in the old place either. I decided to practice trying to be comfortable in that uncomfortable 'in-between' place. |
Available Paintings by Pamela Hoffmeister
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