When is it a good idea to put wings on an easel? When it makes the painting just perfect.
One day a few years ago I painted a little picture of my easel. Innocent enough. The more I looked at it the more I knew that there was something almost magical about that little painting and I couldn’t get enough of it. In the past ten years I’ve done more than thirty paintings of easels. I gotta tell you, there’s something in that object and in its shape that transports me to another place. Working on another easel painting a year later I found myself really struggling with making the image something special and I ended up just for fun giving it a wing.
Well, that really did it.
I thought just plain easel painting was cool, but one with a wing was real joy. I avoid displaying obvious meanings in my paintings, preferring for viewers to make discoveries on their own, so I find ways to shroud them in mystery or hint subtley at the symbols or I’ll even paint something in and then paint over it. Yes, I realize now writing this that that’s a little extreme. So, sue me!
I called that canvas “The Forbidden Red Wing.” Here’s my most recent easel, finished just two days ago.
