B xtra Careful 2day, wood, pastel, trouble, angst, anxiety, relief, 36/6″ tall -+ (three parts), 2012

These cut-out pieces, as I take the liberty of saying, have been an utterly painful pain in the side of my pain. I must have decorated (yes, I just said decorate), the surface of this piece over one-thousand times and still, at this moment, am not satisfied. This process of just having the structure as the sole piece, rather than the structure and fabric integral to each other, has made a mockery of my arbitrary mark making skills. I just can’t put down colors, lines and shapes for the hell of it. There has to be some order, some sort of rule; nonetheless, naturally, for me, the decisions run parallel with traditional graffiti tendencies. Of course, these graffiti like wild-style colored qualities have their own precedents in graphic design: the high-lights, do-dats, outer-outline, the fill-in, inner-outline, 3-D, shadow, and so on.

I don’t recommend using pastel in an enclosed space, NOR spray fixative, which I don’t think works that great if you want to keep the vibrancy of the colors used; otherwise, muddy away! What other choices are there for preventing the pastel from fading/rubbing away every time they are handled? “Don’t use pastel. Duh!” Riiigghhht. But, at least for me, there is an immediacy with the lil chalky bastards I can’t get with with a brush and paint (here is not the best example, but…). I have been granted quite the conundrum. I used to feel fine with the nature of materials even when they were less than satisfactory….IIIIIIIII’m slightly getting over that and maybe getting a little bit more picky with the outcomes — not that I ever felt some pieces were half-ass, or provisionally painted*. Before these type of pieces, the process dictated the outcome with, at the most, a series of several steps and that was it. End of story — For good or for bad. Done.But, Here, the choices for painting/decorating the shapes can go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…until I finally get fed up enough to want to just move on, document the piece, post it to the site…..and then two weeks later work on it again to repeat the same hell hole we can sometimes call painting.