Shoe On Other Foot...

Rows, 2006, 8x10

We have, here in the South, a respected decorator mag called Southern Accents. I haven't picked up a copy in years, but with another house to paint and fix, it's nice to see how the 'powers that be' are doing it. The best part of this mag is that it features a regional artist with each issue so it's a bit more than just fabrics, paint and expensive other stuff. I'd ignored it on several occasions in book stores, grocery check outs but finally tonight I tossed one in with a bunch of paint and rollers at Home Depot. Something unspoken wanted me to see this particular issue... and, I swear, I'm being tested here! No, he's not influenced by my work, not by a long shot.

Explanation: Parallel to the fun and games with my bokusho series, I've been toying with printed photos of trees and how I might enlarge them to much larger sizes than my little printer will handle... or anybody's printer, within reason. I've been working small in order to experiment with method, process and materials, knowing that I would have to eventually have to enlarge in segments, print them and apply in a similar grid format as the bokushos.

Well, don't you know it's already being done? The artist is John Folsom, with his work in a number of enviable galleries. The wind didn't stay knocked out of me for long, I have no intention of having my grid trees confused with Folsom's work, though some of it comes real close to what I was imagining, I will proceed. But this does cross me up... having just documented my sob story about my style being cramped. Maybe whoever said 'there is nothing new under the sun' knew what he was talking about.

The image at the top of this post is a doctored photo I printed out on rice paper and played around with after collaging to a small canvas. The heavily pruned rows are Plane Trees (Sycamores) that are abundant in the south of France.