This is a little mixed media painting on textured polypropylene paper (aka Yupo). I'm experimenting with different edge treatments, thinking about what changes when the the composition is allowed to go past the edges. There is a bit of a cheat, though, in that the poured layer still pulls towards the center. I couldn't quite do it; it didn't feel right.

This painting makes me a little uncomfortable. It is just barely contained. It wants to break out.

I'm working on my thesis paper now for my MFA program and really trying to get at the meaning of the work. There is a sense of mystery that I've always felt when confronted by a good abstract painting. It is similar to the feeling in science just before you have a eureka moment, where the pieces are falling into place and suddenly you understand volumetric displacement, except you never quite get there. It's also like the feeling when you've come down from a really powerful drug experience and you feel like for a moment you understood some really important secrets about the universe and you are sure you still know those secrets up until you try to tell anyone else about them. It's an internal experience, or maybe just something about experiencing reality at a more basic level.

The openings in the poured paint layer in this painting, especially down at the bottom where there is that real nice streak of black above a wide field of blues and oranges, are like tears in the fabric that blinds us to that more basic level of reality. It's a refuge, but it's still dangerous. It's exciting, it's new, but it somehow feels like home.