It is Finished!





"Blue Self Reflection," by Karen K. Remus, Copyright 2012
Acrylic on Canvas, 26" x 53"

How do you know when a painting is finished?  Especially an abstract, expressionistic thing for which you had no specific "destination" in mind to begin with?

In the case of this painting, I was finished before I knew it.  Not that I did it quickly--no-sir-ee!  This thing took YEARS, on and off.  It started out vertically as a window block intended to cover a depressing, dark, barred, window in a prison-like Chicago apartment in 2003.  Then we moved, (window idea out the window), and it turned into a "sun over water" scene, still in the "portrait" position.  That went nowhere, so it flipped horizontally, and became the story telling "triptych" that it is today.

I started with the skeletons conversing on the left and the "blue self" looking back on that interaction.  I got stuck on that for a while, because I couldn't figure out the "style," or degree of "finish" or overall look I wanted to achieve.  I also didn't know what the third "panel," or the area to the right of blue self would contain.  That part represented the future.  I experimented with different things--heads mainly--that didn't work.  Then I got MAD at it.  I attacked with ratty brushes and pallet knives, and colors straight out of the tube.  I told myself "I don't give a shit!"  And then it started to come to life.

Then the "sparkler" idea came to me.  I didn't think of it as a sparkler at first, but that's what it ended up looking like, so that's what I call it.  I think the sparkler and the dubious environs surrounding it causes my friend Dalton to call this painting, "Fourth of July in Hell."  If he sees it that way, more power to him!

But my feelings about this painting are not hellish.  Well, maybe a little, regarding the skeleton interaction, but on the whole, I see it as a positive statement.  The blue figure looks back on the past and evaluates it, while ahead, waits a bright future where she can use what she has learned.  

But back to the issue of "when it was finished."  After painting the "hand" beneath the sparkler, I had no idea what to do next, so I put this painting away, frustrated, for months and didn't look at it.  Then one day, I looked at it and thought, "I have nothing more to say or paint with regard to this.  It is done."  At it was!  That's what I meant when I wrote, "it was finished before I knew it."

So now, it's hanging in my living room.  Sometimes I think it's too busy.  Sometimes I think it's too dark--or I should put a blue/violet edge on the hand.  Sometimes I tell myself to stop criticizing and just accept it as another experiment.  If I want something different, I just need to do another painting.  

I'm through with those skeletons on the left.  One was me as a young, naive art student, and the larger one was a teacher who should have realized and respected that.  Old enough to know better but too desperate and egotistical to care.  Now he's just old.  A big old phony who ended up in my painting, and now, I'm done with him and all of the crazy mental and emotional tentacles that wove their way throughout my psyche.  Eradicated like a heart worm.  Have you ever seen a heart worm?  Our vet has an advanced one in a jar of formaldehyde in her office.  EEEEEEEWWWWW!