I am sitting in my desk chair looking down at my right foot. More exactly, the sock on my right foot. My back hurts a bit as lean forward in a particularly poor posture. I think, “Hey, this is why you got that damn Swiss ball, to get out of this chair” It makes no difference what I think as I am focused on my sock.
There, on the spot that covers the joint of my third metatarsal and phalange is a very dark gray spot. Not a dot but a SPOT. The size of a nickle, solid and remarkably uniform in it’s roundness. On my sock. I am taken by this fact because I had just a moment before taken off the shoe that had been covering this sock for the past several hours.
I stared and tried to reconcile in my mind how I got paint on my sock, when, I had shoes on. I must have been tired and discouraged from the outcome of the painting since I never noticed the large, mysteriously shaped, thick spot of the same color dark gray paint on the top of my shoe. The corresponding spot with the sock spot. I say this because of the rather long time I spent pondering the sock spot before investigating and subsequently finding the shoe spot. Mystery solved.
I know, WTF am I talking about? Lemme tell ya, since you asked and all.
A while back I made some art for a set. Was rather taken with the outcome and decided I wanted to reprise the action, process, motion, to create larger, more expressive version on the entire floor of the set. A BIG version! A swirl to take the audience member in to scene and out of the theater. To make the ethereal location the scene is in, seem a bit more, well, ethereal!
How to do this I asked myself with great big visions and even bigger expectations! I will take the Jackson Pollack knock-off I did and EXPAND! A multi-hue spiral to inspire visions and feelings of the universe itself, right there on the floor of the Cabrillo Playhouse. My 14 X 17 foot expression of “EVERYTHING”.
Well now. When working on an 18 in X 24 in piece of scrap wood on something that is not going to be a focal point, there is very little pressure to do more than just do, get it done and enjoy. When you set you goal to do better and more, more on an exponential level, the pressure rises accordingly.
My vision was a swirl, from the center out, to mimic, represent, create the idea of the center of everything, the universe in common galaxy form, shape. Three hues of gray and one white. All thin, solid lines coming out from a pool in the very middle of the black stage floor. Easy right?
Fill some containers with the paints, poke some holes, turn over, walk in circle, swirl pattern, sit back and pat myself on the back for being so good at the imitation of a master. Then again, what actually DID happen could happen in stead.
When it come to making holes in things, starting small is better. Much easier to go up, forward that backwards. Two little holes in each container. (small coffee cans with plastic lids are the choice. Duct taped together for easy handling and consistent patterning.)
Test on pizza box. Drips a bit. Not the thin solid line I want, have envisioned. Make hole bigger. Bigger drip. No line. Thin paint, short small test works!
Fill three containers up. Fill fourth with white. Have recruited help to follow behind and be the white line. Short discussion on how this is going to work. The containers are turned over into the let-the-paint-flow position. Paint does flow, for a few seconds. Stops flowing, and goes back to dripping. UGH! Vacuum. Need to poke holes in bottoms of cans. BUT – now that I have made holes bigger and paint thinner, concern is the thin line will be a puddle faster than I can walk backwards around the stage.
GAWH!
Not willing to get angry or allow my frustration to ruin my night or my effort to this point, I resort to shakin’, tossing, flippin, turning up and down and generally just flinging paint around. Sigh.
The result is a sorta-swirl of gray dots. A great swirling solid white line saved the concept from complete failure. It works. The floor is not the important part. The actors use of the dialogue and of their ‘instrument’ is the important thing. No one but the actors see the floor anyway. Not really.
So – lessons learned – Jackson Pollack worked hard to do his stuff. Test my methods, ideas more thoroughly before applying to finished product, area! Play more with new techniques. This art stuff is FUN!
I did not get photo because I was so disappointed. Just imagine a big black rectangle with grey dots and a white circle-ish shape. See it? Yea, that’s it.
A V
The Gori Details 
Leave a comment