Worlds within Worlds- Part A

How much of the creative process involves setting out in one direction with certain degrees of uncertainty, seeing it through, and stopping completely with utter shock along the way, as the result achieves something that wasn't conceived of at the outset? How does the creative process unfold to allow space for both production and discovery? Space, time, openness, and enough built in pauses to really witness and observe, that which was unintended but beautiful.

Reflections on test one (grids): The first grid experiment, two beach views, 180 degrees from each other, painted as to line up and swap out pieces of one grid with the other. Yet in laying it out vertically, I discovered something entirely different. How the fold between the two, read as a continuous spatial wave. Sky and water had no end, reflecting into each other. The white space between the canvases brighten each square and picked up the light differently. I started this experiment in Jan 2022, and chipped away at it over the next ten months, working on other paintings and one commission for a friend in-between. My progress was especially slow, as I wasn't sure if it would work. The time span between concept to test was long enough to almost abandon the effort completely. I even photographed the two pieces as one point and printed them on paper to cut up and mock up different configurations. All that effort revealed was that the colors were too dissimilar to tie together, so I painted over bits and sections of the second half to bring them closer. I truly believed it was a dead end.

Yet here they were here in the house, the studio, the living room, waiting. Raising their hands as if to say, "Don't forget about me!" This late summer/ early fall, after a visit from family, I dusted them off with the same enthusiasm I save for chores like cleaning house; we crossed the finish line together with a sense of due diligence rather than unbridled passion. Imagine my utter disbelief and joy, to discover I had been on the right journey all along- it was just heading towards a slightly different destination. Like a plot twist at the end of a story, sans foreshadowing, this would be the start of something new.

The experiment did function as anticipated, but revealed new questions to explore. Can the composite of two images construct something new, yet remain completely independent on their own?