Lending the Sisters a Hand

The Image

Lending the Sisters a Hand

Story Behind the Images:

We watch a lot of BritBox mysteries. Sort of "popcorn mysteries." Plots pretty predictable, cast drawn from what we contend is a cluster of 25 to 50 actors who have lifetime contracts to appear in several movies each year. General "chill out" stuff. However there is one repeating aspect that makes us a bit crazy - the domiciles.

It seems that every home - unless a period manor - features floor to ceiling glass walls, wrap around vistas, isolated conversation nooks, glass coffee tables. Very hip, very what? 70s?

An inevitable result of dressing scenes in this manner is that there are virtually no walls upon which one can hang art. While our new abode does have decent wall space for art, it does not have anything like our previous home. As a result we have far more framed art than space to hang it. Add to that the fact that I keep creating more images. Very OCD, I know. But the situation demands that we reign in our inclination to hang art just where we felt it looked cool, and begin to think about what images informed each other - made a joint statement.

These variables came to result in the image above. You have seen all the images before. The steal from The Sistine Chapel debuted as Mike's Hands. The left hand image is "Masque" from several years ago, while the right hand image is the recently created "Pearl." While Hands was professionally framed, I framed the Sisters by deconstructing a couple of older professional frames and casting the Sisters in them. And the three images seemed to come together conceptually in a bit of vacant wall space across from the entrance to my bathroom. An added benefit is, obviously, a unique view from the throne.

Tangential Thoughts

About the whole OCD thing. I find comfort in Van Gogh's life. He too kept painting image after image throughout his life despite having sold only one inexpensive painting to a follow artist. Upon his death, a relatively short time after his lifelong champion, brother Theo, all of Vincent's paintings became the property of his sister-in-law Johanna Bonger. It was the largely unrecognized Johanna's insightful shepherding of Vincent's painting and letters that gave us the creative genius we enjoy today.

Although I have already tripled Vincent's lfetime sales figures - sold three during a one-man show in a coffeeshop back in the 90s. I have not figured out a way to market my images that would not detract unacceptably from the time that I wish to dedicate to creating them. Sigh.