Mark E. Mehaffey Gallery

WORKING IN A SERIES

The monolith series is now six paintings long. Preceding these six paintings are many that contained similar design elements. This work is content driven; I had a story to tell and that story drove my decision making about what elements to include.

Here is the story...Michigan has been in a recession for much longer than most of the rest of the country. We have the highest unemployment and we are taking longer to recover. Many of our problems stem from the collapse of the auto industry. Michigan relies (still) heavily on that manufacturing base. The rusty metal and now the ancient relief sculptures (Asian, Greek, Mayan with plans for more) represent the past. A past we should learn from, treasure but move on from. The geometrical shapes, mostly rectangles are our "boxes." Those wonderful boxes we just can't seem to think outside of. The repeating patterns of circles or the checker board represent our trying to solve new problems with old solutions. Each of these paintings has "Monolith" in the title...that came from one of my most favorite movies of all time, "2001: A Space Odyssey." This movie (for me) restated three of the most important questions we can ask...where did we come from?, why are we here?, and, where are we going? Each of us gets to answer those questions for ourselves. The fish that swim across the surface of these paintings are a symbol of where we should be headed. Taking care of our natural environment, moving toward a more sustainable way of living so that our people, our State and our Planet will be healthy for a very, very long time.

I highly recommend working in a series. Truly, if it is worth doing once it is worth doing again and again. As we work through each individual painting we keep what is necessary to tell our visual story and even more importantly, we eliminate those elements that are not necessary. We get to the core of what we want to say. Further, as we get well into a series, other idea may pop in and be included or another tangent may make itself evident and call to be explored. Boredom may set in and through simply being bored with the same image we may create something entirely new and exciting. Allow yourself time to explore all avenues.