Ynotartblog's Blog

and still, I’ve been working on it for years. It is the used paperback mystery I am altering by painting over each paragraph turned into a rectangular block. I have about 8 more chapters to go. First, each block is marked with pencil. Then the pages are painted with coats of titan buff. The tops and bottoms of each rectangle are then remarked with pencil and checked for being parallel to the book’s top and bottom. After noting the repeating color next to each block, the painting begins, which usually requires 2 coats if not more. The process repeats for each chapter. Any changes are with the small groups of chosen color as I reflect on, respond to, and add on to an evolving visual story.

Lots of repetitive, meditative, focused work, lots of time spent altering a used book that’s falling apart. At times, the deterioration happens before my eyes. Now there are exactly 5 sections that have separated, not counting the book cover.

It was the feel of the newsprint pages in a used paperback mystery that started it all. I liked how the paper felt. Then I decided to paint a page cadmium red. !

I was…how to describe my feeling?, I was basically in art heaven. The red paint looked astonishingly beautiful. The feel of the paint on the newsprint I already loved was even more incredible. And the flexibility of the painted red page was mesmerizing. I can bend it this way that! O!

Then began a journey of how to use these discoveries. Years and years later, the idea surfaced, like a leaf slowly falling in view. It came as a gift. Seemingly sudden, mysteriously. (Smile.) The paragraphs of a used mystery paperback changed to blocks of color.

So I continue on with my “novel” of color as the paperback ages. After all this time and thought and wonder and discoveries and surprises…how can I not follow on?

To be continued.

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