Multi-Tasking Mania Revisited

With one show hanging and two more on the way this fall, I’ve been very busy. But in between commitments I did find time to prepare something for the South Carolina State Fair. The collage above incorporates parts of a painting that I cut into pieces and reassembled. The new collage has the same title as the original painting, “Multi-Tasking Mania.” The fragmentation of the collage, I think, makes the title even more apt. The three major long dividing lines represent the hour, minute and second hands of a clock with an ever vigilant center eye as a focal point in the work.

Entering anything into a juried exhibition is always an act of faith. The artist sees the value of the time and attention devoted to creating the work, but the juror may or may not see that intent. After skills and presentations are polished to the best of ability, it is almost like a lottery after that. Submitting a work of art that is abstract or conceptual is always a risk A work of art that has many components to it is even riskier to submit to a show that has a large number of entries because a juror’s fatigue will often cause him to prefer quieter, simpler work. But that also depends on what stage a juror looks at the work - beginning, middle, or at the end. So if a juror looks at “Multi-Tasking Mania” early or late in the process, he’ll follow the nuance. In the middle of the process his eyes will just glaze over.

There are many little parts in this piece that will remain secret messages to myself and anyone reading this entry. There is a brown square, for instance, on the left side of “Multi-Tasking Mania” that is a print from a stone seal that I carved which says in ancient Chinese characters “Believe in Meditation (Zen).” It is a joke, of course, because someone “multi-tasking” will not be a likely candidate for meditation. There are a few other scattered seal prints of “long life” as well, printed in blue and green acrylic paint.

To accompany this crazy quilt of a collage, I’ve selected a miniature painting of two fighting large cats from my series, “Thirty-three days of a Puma.” This one is number nineteen.