The Joy of Painting

By the end of 2015, it was obvious to me that I needed to experience more joy in my studio practice.  For the past nine years, I have been making paintings largely based on Civil War photographs… not the most joyous of subjects.  It has been a worthwhile and essential endeavor, and it is not over.  I don’t have specific plans for the next phase of those image based paintings, and I am not concerned at all about that.  I have accumulated an enormous amount of work that fills a significant portion of my studio… it is an energetically powerful collection of paintings that slightly haunt me.

I needed to move on to another series to inject a blast of fresh vibrations in the studio, and I have already launched into that series.  There are tons of pinks, burgundies, golds, and patterns.  Coinciding with that series, I have committed to a year long project to make one painting a week… each a 24″x24″ efficiently formulated and executed “study.”  I needed to explore color again, to study abstraction again, and to play with paint again.  So, I have completed the first and have just started the second.  It appears that Friday to Friday is the timeline of each… and, on this blog I will post an image of the finished painting and offer it up for sale.  If you are interested, please just comment here or get in touch with me at dane@danecarder.com.  You are also welcome to come browse the completed works at my studio, as I am there most mornings during the week.  Thanks for all the support.  Happy New Year!

(I have not settled on a title for the project or the first painting.)