an easel holds the canvas
mostly green with a band of yellow
perhaps a landscape at dusk
sun glowing on the horizon
but look close:
unfinished, mocking me
for a year
each day I pass it and
say, today I’ll start again
but email must be checked
the dogs’ water bowl is empty
I wonder what the Weather Channel
is saying about the chance for rain?
later, as I walk by a brush
will be nowhere to be found
all out of that perfect shade of blue
and it’s too late to visit Utrecht
The trellises are strung with rope lights, so night provides another way to experience them. Since serendipity is a goal of this project (OK, I realize that you can’t plan for a serendipitous experience, but you can plan to embrace it when it comes. Of course, it’s not serendipity if you don’t recognize and embrace it, right? It’s just some random occurrence. Does a serendipitous experience become some thing else if you are on the lookout for it?), the random siting this time around provided an interesting arrangement, particularly after dark (when I look at the pattern of the lights, I see the outline what might be a horse; albeit, a horse with a big nose. Or perhaps a reindeer. Rudolph? Too early for Christmas, but maybe he’s out reconnoitering for Santa. Now that I think about it, it sort of looks like the Road Runner’s nose.) Well, certainly not anything I had in mind when I started this, but I’ll take it.
Today was moving day for the trellises. Three more canvasses were removed, also. Here’s a photo of the current location and configuration.
Day by day, the mushrooms change. Some of the changes are subtle; some are dramatic. The decaying process seems to affect some more than others. Here are a few more photos I took yesterday. By the end of the week, these will be gone (the guy who mows our yard is coming on Friday).
I spent part of Saturday cleaning the canvasses I have removed from the trellises. As I mentioned before, the cool and wet weather caused heavy mildew to form on them. I checked several websites to determine the best way to remove the mildew without damaging the art. First, about a week ago, I sprayed the canvas with Lysol to kill the mildew or any mold spores present and let them dry thoroughly. Next, I used a stiff brush to remove as much of the dried mildew as I could. I did this outside (it was a beautiful almost-fall day), wearing a respirator mask to be sure that I did not inhale any of the dust. The canvasses looked pretty good after that, but I decided to take an extra step that had gotten mixed reviews on the websites I looked at. I used a very diluted mixture of non-chlorine bleach (probably 20-1 bleach and water) to wash the canvasses. This was very effective in removing the rest of the mildew and cleaning the canvasses of the remaining dirt and dust that had accumulated in the weeks that they were outside.
There are four canvasses remaining on the three trellises. Next Saturday is another move and I’ll remove three of the four canvasses then, and clean them. One more move after that.
This summer’s weather has been perfect… for growing mushrooms in my yard. They have surrounded and enhanced the uniqueness of the trellises. Here are a few shots of what I discovered today.
I am into the first week of the third month of this project. I intended from the beginning to remove the trellises at the end of September. When I moved them last week-end, I began the deconstruction process, removing a canvas from each. I removed another set of canvases today. Here are photos of the trellises as they are constituted.
Here are a few photos of what happens to painted canvas when it is subjected to wetter than normal/cooler than normal summer weather. Also, an addition of a spiderweb that fits just fine.
All three trellises have finally been assembled. Here are photos of the completed structures.
Tomorrow is the day to move the trellises to their new positions. I’ll post photos of those views.
The other day, Suzanne and her mother and I spent the afternoon at the Nelson-Adkins Museum. At one point, I was looking at the big Franz Kline the NA has in its new Bloch wing and my mother-in-law asked me what I saw in the painting. Now, these days, mostly what I look at is technique. How did the artist create the image? How did she apply the paint? What sort of brush-strokes did he use? Did she change her mind about parts of the canvas?
I pointed out to my mother-in-law a couple of area of the Kline that looked like they had been painted over, white-over-black, and I showed her which brush stroked looked like they had been applied first and which one were done later. I don’t know if Kline considered some of the over-painted areas as mistakes or simply a change in direction, but I know that occasionally, I make a mistake in my art. For example, I made a big one right off the bat in siting my Trellises.
My plan for locating the three trellises was to use a grid of my front yard divided into 28 5′ x 5′ squares. On paper, it looked correct, but when I developed the grid on the ground, I used 10′ x 10′ squares instead of 5′ x 5′ squares. So, my first trellis was ten feet off. I realized what I had done when I started to site the second trellis, but I made the decision to leave the first one in the wrong spot; after all, I am nothing if not flexible with this project and it will make the flower/bulb/shrub beds in that area a bit more serendipitous.
Let the waters come... 