Good Intentions - 4

Good Intentions - 3

Good Intentions - 2

Layers of good intentions

After working designs in cut paper I decided to try the same design ideas in paint, perhaps with more successful layering. 

The general idea here is that layers of good intentions can create opaque walls: think of conflicting needs, wants and accommodations made within families; good intentions can cloud perceptions. Similarly, governments at any level have some notion of serving the best interests of most, and can, with a sense of good intent, do things that hurt people. Being very straight up about it, the pretty designs can be thought of as the good intentions. 


Templates: 'can't get over it' and 'can't get under it' 
      

14 1/4 " x 13 1/2" (36cm x 34cm)

black and white gesso 

It's not over until the whole thing sings

I have been trying to convince myself that this one sings like the others: 

But it doesn't. I fussed with the pears, a lot, and they still aren't right, maybe the arrangement was awkward, or the background wasn't right. When I really landed on the conclusion that it just wasn't on, the next question was, "Is anything salvageable?"  I thought maybe so and studied if for its saving graces. Settled on the 'template' can't-get-around-it, and went to work.  

This feels like the right move for this one. I think it just left the 'Us vs Them' group and will be about something else. When it knows what it wants to be.

   

It's a cover

'Bringing it Home: Tomatoes' is featured on the cover of the U of T Press catalogue, and will be on the book Edible Histories Cultural Politics: Towards a Canadian Food History (editors Franca Iacovetta, Valerie J. Korinek and Marlene Epp) when it comes out later this year. Marlene (not a relation, but we know some of the same people) saw 'Bringing it Home' in the "Just Food: Right to Food from a Faith Perspective" show last summer. She contacted me, the press got involved and the 2 covers were developed. I feel honoured.  

Garage Art

In homage to the wacky and joyful yard art I saw in Asheville, NC.

More Us vs. Them

20" x 22"

                                                                         26" x 24"

Us vs. Them

The idea I am circling around has to do with walls. Walls divide.

There are political bricks and mortar walls: the Berlin wall, now gone; the wall hastily going up between Israel and Palestine; the fence and other defences between the US and Mexico.
There are ideological walls: Conservatives vs. NDP; Republicans vs. Democrats; religious right vs. liberal secularists. There are psychological walls, as in 'hitting my head against a wall,' and invisible but unsurmountable walls that seem to prevent achievement. 

Walls are frightening, and create exclusive spaces. I can only contemplate walls by anticipating a way over, through, around or under. The 4 little paintings in the previous post are templates for wall/escape relationships.

I started the 'Us vs.Them' paintings in the fall of 2011. I left them for done, then returned to them in the spring of 2012. There are layers of walls and escapes -- ladders, windows, doors, tunnels -- and tomatoes vs pears. There are 4 paintings. I think I am done with 2.

24" x 22" 

22" x 22" 

    

Can't get over it - can't get under it - can't get around it

                                        5" x 5"

Or can I?