31 MEDITATIONS ON THREE PLUMS: 5 SLEEP

About the Series

31 Meditations on Three Plums, a series of alla prima oil paintings, began as one small 6 x 6" painting of three plums placed on a square hand-painted plate. A chord was struck. The paintings then became more about the paint itself than the subject matter, and then about skin, sunlight, almost no light, stillness, then about where two points touch, about edges, coldness, wetness, shyness, brilliance, isolation, warmth, tenderness, boldness, depth, constellations, galaxies, rapture, a barometer of my mood that day, the blood red dripping magenta phase of the moon in early December, the weather. Each plum started out with the Japanese enso, the calligraphic circle. Each painting was completed in a single sitting. My mirror: three plums, the blue violet bloom, the dip in the center, the geometry of the plate, the stripes, the shifting light.