What it is, I do not know.

I have been working on six small paintings. They are painted in oil with some pencil on clay boards – like Poetic Ghetto. They all came from the quick sketches I did (I used those as the compositions), and I painted them all with the tiniest brush I own. I got super excited about one of the pieces in particular, which I titled, “The Notion of Ambiguity Must Not be Confused with that of Absurdity.” Here it is almost finished:

I actually thought I was onto something new, but they are all still super tight. They were planned out and I used that super small brush.

Then today, without thinking, I decided to do a kind of fucked up self portrait. I did the underpainting (acrylic) with a big, wet brush on a 24 inch square canvas. It looks like a slopfest. I couldn’t bear to post it at the stage it is right now.

But then, I had all this extra color in acrylic in a few different bowls, so I mixed a couple of the bowls together and just needed to “get rid of it” (I hate wasting paint). I wound up with colors I never use and just started doing “whatever” on a few different canvases and one panel and they are all crazy. I mean like nothing I thought I could ever do. Loose and sloppy. They are very 1960s Eva Hesse. Either something is happening, or it was just a temporary lapse in left brain vacancy. They are faces and figures. I never do figures – and if I do, not like this and not in these colors.

I’ve been wanting to loosen up for years and today something turned a corner and I just painted, and it was weird. Not like anything I’ve done before. I’m either losing my marbles or I’ve hit on something very new. Whether it’s good is a whole other thing to think about.

I am not going to think about it.