Possibilities

In my studio are two large canvases.  I built the frames and stretched the material over them this weekend.  I am now enjoying the slow process of covering the raw canvas with layers of gesso; a very stable form of white acrylic paint which seals the canvas material so it will not rot over time.  I have not stretched or gessoed canvas for years.

My last large painting project involved painting on boards, sixteen of them. Boards were perfect for that series; the paintings took me years to complete.  Each painting was three feet by four feet and each demanded a lot of thought and feeling.  It was exhausting, especially since I was weak from kidney failure.  I am no longer weak and wrestling with large canvases is now a treat again.

I first stretched and gessoed canvas in high school.  Prepared canvas had become too expensive so we learned to prime it ourselves; a terrific skill.  My teacher was thorough and we began with a material called rabbit skin glue, which is exactly what it sounds like.  It smelled disgusting and we were all delighted to learn that it is not necessary when using acrylic instead of oil based gesso; we stopped.  I like rabbits and I am allergic to them, so the glue was nasty on many levels for me.

Today the delightful smell of damp cotton and fresh acrylic medium greets me as I enter my work space.  It is the aroma of possibilities.  The pleasure it creates reminds me of a classroom full of eight year old students with their noses pressed deep into the spines of their new school books.  We loved to inhale the new book smell; it was full of possibilities.

In the spring as the ground defrosts, one of my favorite smells is of earth. The warm soil, so long locked inside layers of frost, slowly begins to be released, to breathe and exhale a delicious scent of fertility which calls nature to live again. Each spring I know, not only the possibilities, but also the realities of the days ahead and I become eager.

It is spring in my studio, I have ideas, but the paintings themselves will lead the way.  For right now, I am preparing the "soil," nurturing the surface into yielding an image for me and for whomever chooses to see it:  I am eager.