Wordplay: Floating on Gossamer Light

gos·sa·mer [gos-uh-mer]
–noun
:: a fine, filmy cobweb seen on grass or bushes or floating in the air in calm weather, esp. in autumn.
:: something extremely light, flimsy, or delicate.

I’ll admit it right now. There have been no peeks into my progress on the first round of Wordplay, gossamer, because there had been no progress up until the very. last. minute. Don’t get me wrong, I thought about it and thought about it, everyday, for six weeks. Thought and wrote and thought and sketched and thought some more. I had a vision in my mind, but didn’t know the road to take to get there. It was like the map was all folded up wrong in my head.

I had fully intended, from the moment I opened up Shari’s note and the pink paint chip with the word “gossamer” in typed letters affixed fell out, to make this another gocco project. I wanted to commit myself to a medium, but then the days ticked by, and it just didn’t feel right, somehow. I found myself doodling long, overlapping strands, wispy threads, and thinking about how the light hits the window, and falls through tree branches, and illuminates things from behind. I spent six weeks of spring noticing. And then I started thinking about painting.

Then, a couple of days ago, something happened to me. I found a road to follow. And that road led me to another road. And suddenly I had more than one place I wanted to go with this.

My first piece, the idea that has been in my head since very near the beginning, started with an image I was lucky enough to encounter in my backyard a couple of weeks ago. Late afternoon sun was shining through the new red leaves of this bush, which is unfortunately now gone from my life. I was frantic to capture this fleeting moment, before that waning light disappeared. You know how fickle light can be.

This light whispered “gossamer” in my ear, I imagined strands of gossamer as strands of light, and I wanted to build on this image somehow. I printed it on watercolor paper, which soaked up the ink in a darkish, slightly insane, but totally expected way when you really think about it. That’s what watercolor paper is meant to do, after all. Soak. So anyway, I didn’t want it quite as dark as it was, so I adjusted it in Photoshop to lighten it, and printed it again. Perfect. Light and red and warm and it felt like I could swirl the sunlight around in my mouth like a good wine. Just what I wanted. Then I painted a bunch of gel medium over it, which loosened the ink ever so slightly and made it feel like a hot, blurry autumn afternoon, and lay strands of thread over the image, twisting and overlapping, hanging off the edges, multiple layers, floating above and below, suspended in layers of transparent paint. Over that, I painted thin strokes of oil paint, white, yellow, some brown, freeform and floating. I thought about mounting the print directly on a small square block of wood before applying the layers of paint and thread, sanding down the edges to give it a worn look, but I couldn’t find a piece of wood to my liking. So it is just a wavy paper sculpture at the moment, which lends to the delicate, flimsy definition of the word gossamer anyway. I think it would work mounted slightly raised from a board.

This inspiration took hold, though, and I began these additional, and unfinished, pieces in what I hope to be a small series. I was so motivated to start working in oil paint again, that I wanted to translate some of the feeling of the paper sculpture into a painting as well. I laid down a color field on small canvas, with just a hint of a figure/ground shape suggested by color and brushstrokes. Pebbles, of course, because I can’t get them off of my mind. I intend to lay threads over this as well, and build up a few layers, and perhaps coat it with wax.

I used to make big oil paintings combined with screenprinting, but It has been AWHILE since I’ve really painted. I just don’t feel that I have the right space to dedicate to large scale oil painting, nor the time that I would love to commit to it. I did a little acrylic painting for an illustration assignment a few weeks ago, but wasn’t pleased with the final result. It fit the bill, but as a personal work, I plan to paint over it in oil, which I just haven’t gotten around to yet. I am not a huge fan of working with acrylic, I much prefer the way oil paint mixes and reflects light and color.

So when I decided that I was going to bring my box of oil paint up from the basement and pour myself a jar of paint thinner, I was excited. And that first dip of the brush into paint, the smell of turpenoid, the feel of the oil on the canvas – oh it made me happy. So happy. I really, REALLY want to start making little oil paintings, to get back in the saddle. And I feel like that’s something that I have the space and the time for. Because they’re just little guys. And now, I have some inspiration, this combination of paint and thread. My head is full of all kinds of directions I feel like I could go with this, and that is exciting.

Gossamer was hard. A challenge, indeed. But it is so great to see what Emily and Erin interpreted in it. The next word arrived in the mail today from an artist for whom I have so much respect: bloom. Awesome.