Stamps on Theoretical Teapots

My recent small painting projects have evolved once again into a combination of painting, collage, and monoprints. This is probably why I also make mosaics. I can’t get away from thinking of paint as the glue in which to adhere things. Even the stamps I apply wet into wet so that the pigment oozes between the lines of the print, preserving the viscous quality of the substance of paint.


In the latest in my series of “The Theoretical Teapot,” I used a labyrinthine stamp on the body of the vessel. The background was textured by painting through a woven piece of fiber. Using the stuff of applied materials feels like free painting - the shapes practically make themselves. All I do is delicately emphasize these textures with a small paintbrush, varnish and pigment. Unlike many of my stamps, the one I used for this painting is decorative only and doesn’t actually say or mean anything. But can language be far behind? A day spent carving Chinese stamps will change the way this series evolves.