21 August 2005
The Impossible Color (de)mystified
After seeing my blog, Steven sent me an email, saying, "I remember the impossible color dream... I remember it vividly, actually. Not sure why - it struck me as an artist very deeply - the impossible chase of the artistic journey..." And I thought, shit, if my dream had had such a profound impact on him, what did that mean for me? Why did I name my blog after a dream I had over 6 years ago anyway??
I had this vision in either the summer of 1997 or 1999, while living in Italy. Back then I was living and breathing and painting landscape. Anyone who has painted naturalistic landscape knows that one of the most difficult challenges is mixing GREEN (well, not if it's a desert I suppose, but even there one might come across a cactus). Because green isn't really green. It's brownish orange or blueish or purpleish yellow. It's all the other colors that makes green LOOK green. Young painters tend to squeeze out some green from the tube and try get away with it, but it doesn't usually work that way.
So. Back then I was being haunted by green. I had been working on this one big painting of some fields, for weeks. And it was bad. I mean, really bad. I was sure then that it was the worse thing I had ever made. Just awful. And yet I kept at it, and the more I worked on it, the more over-worked and stiff it looked. And the color was terrible!
Then I had this dream. In the vision I was in the landscape, I was part of the landscape, and I arrived at a particular hill. And when I saw this hill I just started screaming, "oh no, it's the impossible color! it's the impossible color!" There was something about the green of that hill that just terrified me. I think I even ran away.
What does this mean? I'm not sure, but for some reason it's stayed with me all of these years. I know that at the time, it was a sign that I should abandon that atrocious painting (and I did, eventually). And now? Now I see it as a challenge. What will I do when I encounter the impossible color again? Will I run, screaming, away from it? Or at it?
I intend to lop it's head off. ¶ 1:24 PM
After seeing my blog, Steven sent me an email, saying, "I remember the impossible color dream... I remember it vividly, actually. Not sure why - it struck me as an artist very deeply - the impossible chase of the artistic journey..." And I thought, shit, if my dream had had such a profound impact on him, what did that mean for me? Why did I name my blog after a dream I had over 6 years ago anyway??
I had this vision in either the summer of 1997 or 1999, while living in Italy. Back then I was living and breathing and painting landscape. Anyone who has painted naturalistic landscape knows that one of the most difficult challenges is mixing GREEN (well, not if it's a desert I suppose, but even there one might come across a cactus). Because green isn't really green. It's brownish orange or blueish or purpleish yellow. It's all the other colors that makes green LOOK green. Young painters tend to squeeze out some green from the tube and try get away with it, but it doesn't usually work that way.
So. Back then I was being haunted by green. I had been working on this one big painting of some fields, for weeks. And it was bad. I mean, really bad. I was sure then that it was the worse thing I had ever made. Just awful. And yet I kept at it, and the more I worked on it, the more over-worked and stiff it looked. And the color was terrible!
Then I had this dream. In the vision I was in the landscape, I was part of the landscape, and I arrived at a particular hill. And when I saw this hill I just started screaming, "oh no, it's the impossible color! it's the impossible color!" There was something about the green of that hill that just terrified me. I think I even ran away.
What does this mean? I'm not sure, but for some reason it's stayed with me all of these years. I know that at the time, it was a sign that I should abandon that atrocious painting (and I did, eventually). And now? Now I see it as a challenge. What will I do when I encounter the impossible color again? Will I run, screaming, away from it? Or at it?
I intend to lop it's head off. ¶ 1:24 PM
