Have been working intensely on this commission. The commission did not have a title, but as I was in the process of creating, it came to me that this painting was a nocturne. A nocturne for me is usually in blue tones, and this painting had the feel of a nocturne, but the underlying color was a purple-red or crimson, thus Crimson Nocturne. Titling work has never been an easy endeavor. Because my paintings are abstract, I usually enlist various musical forms, such as a "nocturne." The title of my paintings do not indicate a story, but rather an atmosphere -- a sense of something that seems familiar or the sense that this is in our mind's experiential vocabulary.
Working on a commission poses some hurdles. In this case, the commission is based on another one of my paintings. So how do I find a way back into the process for that painting? And because work simply evolves, how do I approach the new work? After much thought, I felt the only way into this commission was through color. After preparing the initial palette-triangles and arranging them on the surface, I needed to rely on the process-- the process of responding or reacting to each palette-triangle and building upon that continuous response.
