Painting
Working subtractively has always felt natural or good to me. In grad school, a mentor once asked why I liked to cover then uncover as a way of painting and I didn't have a very good answer then. I'm not sure if I do now, but having given it a lot of thought over 20 years, I have more ideas and notions as to my motivation.
Erasing is subtractive, layering is additive and can also be subtractive in the sense that one may delete or mask something in the composition by covering or layering with something else...a competing thought if you will. Using a sander as an eraser is not new for painters, and I may be coming to the end of this process, but this 20 year question of why I cover and uncover, or excavate is reaching its end. This piece in particular is about baring something, and for some reason, this painting wanted the middle removed. The outer edges and the middle relate with these lovely undulating lines suggestive of landscapes, heat and topographical maps. The exposure of the middle reveals the wood it was painted on (birch) its beauty of grain and hue.As I look at the whole composition, I see the wood, the relationship to heat maps, and a leap happens to think of climate change, fires, and coastal contours changing.