This was one of the four small works which initiated me back into doing acrylics after many years of forsaking it.... more of a study piece in seeing how to use the paint, tho was again, a playing on words and view - is it, for instance, a real dragon or a toy? then, too, there was wanting to see how hard to blend the shading of the egg - considering the whole was only about 5 hours, not a poor blending.... a light-hearted work showing a whimsical nature of mine...
......The interesting thing of this is that is merely came from the initial seeing of a sunflower sideview, and thought of a plant 'facing the wind and light' so to speak... from that, came the positioning of the leaves to effect a 'blowing', whether wind or light or both, and a fence to brace it..... obviously there arose the scene in mind of the bow on the Titanic movie - hence the mouse.... all, of course, gathering together to make, as the theme/title says - a Confluence.....
One of my favorite artists was a man named William Harnett..... so, with this series which was to display my talents of painting, after a long spell [over a decade] of not painting, I decided to try my hand at doing something in the order of a trompe l'oeil.....hence, as seen in the close-up, my tribute to him... this is another of my odd twistings of objects used before - the mouse, of course, has been in many works now - and the snake was one which was in "Laissez-Faire", one of my two bicentennial paintings [the other being "Cymbal", the flying eagle one].... of course these are not usually thought of as proper in still-life works, because they are still full of life, and still-life usually involve non-moving objects..... however, there is the sense of s 'stilled life' which would work as well - and so it is thus with this work.... here are two objects usually not congenially seen together - and thus is born the theme/title, "Critical Mass", being that thick glass separating them... of course, too, just putting them together as this involves a quirky sense of humor as well, which is fine, as it would seem the mouse could use some every now and then, the way it has been seen in some of my works... there is no big philosophical issue here in this, just a fundamental notion of 'just space' which can apply to anyone seeking security..... the rest is just playing with the paint, seeing how far it could be taken in just a few hours, as well as seeing how in my mind the idea of glass could be worked convencingly...
This is one of the less serious pieces, tho one in which is celebrated a 'joy de vie', and a chance to do several metaphorics on the word 'port'.... there is, for example, the obvious - port means left in nauticaleze - so, the view is from the port side, the turning is to the port direction, and the leaning is ported.... 'port' also is the color of wine, a darkish yet full-bodied , a mixture of purple and blue - of which there is plenty seen..... the temprament, too, is full-bodied, and so it shows here in the waves, and the almost nonchalantness of the pilot, an exhuberance to heading home - seen off in the distance - again, on the port side..... there are more there, but these suffice to get the idea across..... note, too, that the sky, which could have been rendered as dark and forboding, is instead bright and enlightening - yet another which could be considered a 'porting' idea..
