Art Process – Poetry and scrapmetal

Go Within, 2014, mixed media on panel, 16″ x 16″

I’ve always been interested in the use of text and poetry as part of my art process. Having read Letters to a Young Poet by poet Rainer Maria Rilke, I decided to start a series of paintings based on his 10 letters to Franz Kappus. Although the letters were written over 100 years ago, Rilke’s reflections on life, writing and creativity still resonate today. Each painting will be based on one of his letters. It’s a slightly different point of departure for me and I’m intrigued on how the series will develop. They will be small in scale–about 16″ x 16″– and will incorporate more assemblage in a shadow box format. The series will require a little more time to plan and to gather materials that will reference the letters. I want to make at least three to start and the first one is pictured above.

At the same time, I’m planning another series of paintings based on new photos that I took earlier this year at a metal scrapyard. Some examples are pictured below. This photo shoot is a bit of an extension of the photos I shot at Arnt Arntzen’s studio for my exhibit Building Perspective last year. I have preliminary ideas to use more large, 3 dimensional found objects alongside these photos to continue the theme of exploring our relationship with everyday objects.