Un-Named

This piece began as a simple spiral of shapes and transformed itself into something else. It is ambigous. At one time it suggests one thing to me and at others, something else. I am reluctant to give it a title, as that will direct the viewer toward a single way of viewing it. So it remains:

Un-named

Soaring

I am still working with simple shapes and allowing them to suggest things to me. In this case I started with a long simple shape - the darker blue below - and while playing added another shape. The two together reminded me of flight whether of birds or of fish.

Soaring in the Current

Another set of combinations called for a circular container with opposing pairs, circling round each other.

Circling

Shoals

I continue to be fascinated by the use of simple shapes to build an image, theme or idea. This time I chose a simple shape of two curves - one a simple curve and the other a compound curve. I began playing with them and came up with a shoal.

Shoal 1

Further playing produced a variation, producing opposing and interacting pairs.

Paired Shoal

Further application of these shapes and a few other random shapes lent themselves to this oval.

Shoal 4

In doing these things I sometimes think of Christopher Alexander's "The Nature of Order". I have only read the first book, and that took quite a while. Perhaps sometime I will give my reactions - for what they may be worth - on his theory. Anyway, the patterns I develop are initially done without concern for obvious aesthetic, but as I begin to adjust and slightly re-arrange things, some of his comments about pattern, repetition and flow do come to mind. Although I wish they would not. They interrupt the flow of what I am trying to do - be spontaneous - too much. Too much theory gets in the way, unless it can be so woven into practice that it is instinctive.