Dennis Hollingsworth

Tonight.

It's a familiar feeling, that disatisfaction in the making of something like this. Always, there are things I like and things I don't and each accumulating action in the making of the thing tries to maximize the former and minimise the latter. That means that you therefore proceed with caution, trying not to disturb the leaves as they fall.

I'm not saying that this painting dissatisfies, but that the act of making it negotiates with a feeling of disatisfaction and if things are going well, that feeling of lack is moderated until it is finally gone (an evolving ratio of like over dislke mentioned above), usually with a crescendo and finale that caps the whole experience. Caps it positively, else I take out the big knives and scrape the whole thing off and start again.

And concentric ovals will always look like eyes, either in the familiar horizontal pairing, or singly, or sideways, or in a multitude. I always insert them after scooping out a chunk or undesireable patch... one disk on top of the other... the higher the stack, the more the visual screw. But the purpose wasn't to plug ojos onto the mass, it was to bring a difference to the trend of blue, yellow and green that was premominate in the work, to do this without eliminating that color and massing story. So I scooped out the parts that were... redundant (I'm not sure of that term, but so far it works) and inserted disks of black and white, knowing that they would spike up the visuality of those areas. I have this theory of a "corona effect" of when a structure such as the stacked disks or the "monads" (spikey balls) (what used to be called daubs) of paint that is sufficiently articulated, can heighten the visuality of the area surrounding it. A visual corona.

In other words... I didn't set out to paint a flounder.
(A rim shot if you please, Mr. bandleader!)

UPDATE: Stephanie walked by and said "Hmmm, Laker Colors.". That's right, it's all about the Lakers.