canvas | The Direction of Intention

Unroll And Renew [on DR Thursday]

Posted on April 13, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

During the past weeks I have rectified a wrong that I did to myself. A few years ago, after several water disruptions in my basement studio, with the space in disarray and too full of stuff, I had a fit of “what-am-I-going-to-do-with-all-of-these-paintings. With no thought to the future, I rolled several of my canvases. There are many, many paintings so I made multiple heavy rolls. And then I stacked them. The stacking was my crime. The weight of the top rolls pressed those on the bottom. Left too long and the canvas warps; the paint cracks.

I feel as if I am emerging from a dream. The past. Dried flowers in springtime.

At breakfast on Monday, Liam asked if I had been painting. I blinked, not ashamed of my reply but mostly shocked at the truth of it. “I just finished a painting,” I said, “the first I’ve completed in three years.” Three years ago I rolled my paintings to keep them out of the water – to get them out of the way. Broken wrists, lost jobs, pandemic, an uncanny series of water issues…A pause. Or, I feared, a finish?

I carefully unrolled the paintings. Flattened the waves in the first canvas roll with books. I built successive layers of flat paintings, using the weight that caused the problem to my advantage. Opening the rolls was like taking a walk back through my life. Two of the rolls were paintings from the early 1990’s. A self portrait in orange on an Oregon beach. I recognized the paintings but had to reach to find the painter. Dried flowers. A dream. The past.

Kerri wrangled carpet tubes from a big box store. We cut them and carefully rerolled the paintings, now with a solid center so they cannot be smashed. We devised a strategy to stand the tubes, protected from any future water problem.

Emerging from the dream. Perfect timing. It is the season of renewal. Spring.