I was at the back of my Gallery in Grayton and there on the floor was a beautiful huge print on canvas of Western Lake done by Chandler Williams (Modus Photo).
I asked Mario what it was doing there (taking up precious space!!!!)
“He dropped it off. He said you should try something new and have fun with it.”
Ugh..I groaned….NO!!!!
I told Mario I had no intention of ruining a perfectly good piece of art! It was FINE as it was! I had plenty of students that were photographers and they had all tried their hand at embellishing their work and it was all good and fine, but it just wasn’t something I was interested in.
I took it to my home studio to free up some space and it sat there for a very long time.
Inspiration is tricky. It’s not something you want to force or really even TRY to figure out. If you force it, it will show in your work. You have to be patient. You have to wait. There’s no way around it.
That piece stared at me for a while and it drove me nuts!
I let it be.
Then one day, I was painting a ton of paintings. I like to have days where I paint and paint and paint and do nothing else…just paint. I become hypnotized by the swirling paint and the flow of colors, I can’t get enough of it! AND THEN..it hit me! All along, I kept thinking I would end up doing what everyone else was doing with their photos…putting green glass on the green trees, blue glass on the water, blue glass in the sky….ugh..how un-original. I WANT TO BE ORIGINAL AND NEW AND NEVER SEEN BEFORE….
And then…it hit me.
My wash of color.
It’s what I do a lot of…
Why not wash the photo with paint to give it the look of seeing thru my mess of paint and glass…at a beautiful, well composed scene of Western Lake.
I was salivating now!
I told Mario my plan…he LOVED IT!!!
It sold fast. It was even selected for a luxury home interiors showroom, but sold before it could get there. Modus just dropped off two more last week! I can’t wait to give them a whirl!
THANK YOU, CHANDLER!!
Peace,
M
PS…they are signed, Modus+Mary on glass.