Wednesday, July 13, 2022

The accident that was the mother of invention


Pigeons
50 x 60

A couple of weeks ago, I spoke a little about how I use bitumen in my artwork- but in the interest of keeping things under 30 seconds for an Instagram reel, I left out the part about how I discovered this unusual ingredient.  



Early in my career after finishing college, I acquired an interior house painting company to add to my business.  While we were working for a client, some roofing tar got on the wall near some cabinets. We tried quite a few products, but found it almost impossible to cover up the tar.  I was intrigued and spent some time figuring out what made it so indelible.  As I experimented with it, I found that it reminded me of all of the interesting things I loved about studying ceramic glazes in college.  I love the unusually strong, appealing, translucent color it produces. The rich ambers, vibrant blacks, and luscious chocolate browns  in my paintings are almost exclusively the result of the tar’s influence on a very limited number of other paint colors in any given piece.




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