The Textures of a Story

I’ve been on a bit of a roll lately, on the art-meets-inner-life department. It kind of all started with textures, which I’ve been playing with over the past several months. I love the look of old paintings… the textures, the life, the stories contained within each crack and mysterious tactile anomaly. To me, there’s something comforting about them. It makes me want to touch them. It makes me want to own one, so I can look at it every day and ask questions, see new things, make up stories about it. And touch it without getting the stink eye from the guard.

Of course, I’ve noticed that the pieces I’m most interested in are just a wee bit spendy. So I started playing with my own, to satisfy the craving. I did this one recently:

It’s part of a series I’m doing; my “Vineyards Project”. I figure it’ll take a year or so – because I’m not going at it with single-minded focus, I’m just building it slowly, as it’s in my flow. But that’s another story.

I chose textures for this one, because it fits the overall ‘vineyard’ story and vibe. To me, that story includes these elements: family-owned for generations, rolling hills of Italy (with its awesome history and romance. Definitely arty!), the way things age and crack in the hot sun, the glow of said sun, earthiness, sense of place and past, a tapestry of life. A sense of place. There’s more, but you get the idea.

Since THAT story has layers and time to it – so do the layers here. I used several, at various blending modes – and at various levels of opacity. I liked this photo such an approach, because even the composition lends itself to the story… it contains a certain passage of time, in and of itself.

Story. It’s everywhere. And even the nuances of them (maybe especially the nuances of them) can be spoken eloquently and evocatively in our art. IF we create them from our own ‘signature’ and feeling. It sure is fun – and it feels really good! That can never be a bad thing. 😀