What's Next

I always experience a little lull after a show opens.  Pushing to complete a body of work, packing it up and shipping it off is both cathartic and scary.  My studio is virtually empty--a deliciously blank space full of endless possibility.  There are no loose ends trailing anywhere.  I'm ready to begin something totally, wonderfully, brand new.  At the same time, I always experience an absurd little pang of fear: what if that was it?  What if I never come up with any new ideas, and I end up working in a bank or something equally horrific?  This back and forth between excited anticipation and worry results in the lull.  Luckily, during this lull, I had a commission to work on, and an ever-growing fascination with my unborn child's new little post-meal dance parties, to pull me through without too much fretting.  I can't show you the paintings I've been commissioned to make, since they're a surprise.  But I have figured out where to begin my next body of work.  Here's what I've been looking at and thinking about:

Things with compartments and "doors," like this little card box I've had kicking around in my studio, holding my thumbtacks for a few years.

Narrative forms that open and close, like books, and specifically like medieval illuminated manuscripts.

And altarpieces.  Altarpieces are big with me right now.