There are no endings

It's been almost two weeks since we wrapped up VS 280 for the Spring 2016 semester. It already seems like ages since Alison and David (seen above) pinned up their semester's work, or since Josiah hung his canvases (seen at right), or since any of us spent an evening in Wurster 170 bouncing around the world of art and visuality.

If this class was meant to be a journey, then theoretically it ended with that—but anyone who travels much in life knows there is no real end to any journey, rather there are only transitions.

When I began this course, I felt I had a pretty secure style of painting, a fairly developed sensibility. I had also, however, not completed in painting in several years. I tended to blame this on graduate school—too busy, and yada yada—but I wonder if that's being honest with myself. For the last few years of my active painting, I experimented with doing series, and with changing the size and scale at which I painted. In retrospect I see these as markers not of growth but of dissatisfaction. Sure I had a developed style, and that meant that a painting was little more than a technical exercise.

I began VS 280 thinking this would be merely a nice way to pass some time. It would fill up my course schedule, it was at a time that didn't conflict with anything else, and it would give me an excuse to paint again. And it was those things. But it also did more. Even straight out of the gate I knew I couldn't just do what I was doing before, I knew I had to do something different, special. And because it was a class, it was also an opportunity to try things without consequences. So I started with an experiment: what could I do if I took my limited palette idea to its fullest extreme, and used only one paint color? The result was the first assignment, Alcatraz Avenue.

Alcatraz Avenue. Watercolor on paper, 9.5 x 18.0 inches, 2016.

Yet I struggled after this. I tried to mimic, I tried to change forms and formats. I found frustration where I sought solace, yet I also found escape from that frustration. I let go of the form and the precision, and for the last week, I painted Farallones / Islands of the Dead.

Farallones / Islands of the Dead. Watercolor on paper, 18 in x 24 in, 2016.

I would not have painted this had it not been for VS 280, had it not been for our weekly ruminations about representation, form, style, intent, meaning, art. I don't know where this leaves me now, but I do know that I have been changed, and in a way for which I am profoundly grateful.

To Alison, Daniel, David, Elva, Esther, Josiah, Judith, Marco, Robin, and Tamara—and of course, to Tony—I thank you for sharing this journey with me, and I wish you all the best on your next.