Tangled Paper Ideas
Eating Promises Like Seeds and Expecting Them to Grow
60″ x 40″ acrylic on mixed media
sami Peterson 2018
One year has lapsed since the work’s beginning, which is of course also an end. Paper forcefully tangled one January ago has become heavy with paint. Evidence of these initial movements hang like ghosts. These structures at times break the lines of the subject, while the subject seeks to organize or comprehend the chaotic topography.
“it doesn’t rain as much here
I have to make my own”
The detail phase is the last chance to slow down before the work is finished. Unexpected discoveries still introduce new textures and marks, this near to the end. These colors are for her wife.
I caught a blue over you and it’s been almost a year. (It could have been almost 4 years.) Yet in the end I have to admit less is undone than is done. The meniscus is broken and clarity spills over the piece. Color considerations quicken as the final composition solidifies. I post this progress…
Today, I wrote a letter to your best friend instead of to you March 10, 2017 Lies we tell ourselves March 22, 2017 I will you to disappear from my broken reflection April 19, 2017 painted husk rolling out before me like so many hills rains and their bows overflowing canyons with color I never…
3 years ago, today you mailed an envelope containing 1 Buddha statue encased in clay. “Without the crack, you never would have known the gold was there.” Kintsugi, I evoke, and say, my clay is broken. Who will fill my fault lines with gold?
Numbness like this isn’t the feeling of nothing. It is every color painted on a silent and motionless wave peaceful in its cacophony.
I’m feeling so green the longer I’m apart from you. It’s the color of unkempt hope in chilling coves.
You and I never understood green. There was simply no room. But babe, I’m beginning to
SAMI PETERSON 