My Field of Dreams

I suppose it might be difficult to explain to someone why an enormous canvas covered in fields of color and line appeals to me. Say you go on a hike through a field of wildflowers...



...maybe detour a bit along a straight trail of gravel, and then end up looking out at a sea of bright sky....
It’s beautiful right? Breathtaking. Indescribable even. Or maybe you see a building made up of sharp edges and diagonals, it’s physicality overwhelmed by its abstractness.

That’s why I have such an affinity for “field painting” works by the likes of Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn. You come across one of their massive paintings in a stale art museum with industrial white walls and instantly connect with that heavenly feeling of endless space and time. Okay, maybe it’s just me but that’s why I love these artists.

I once wrote about a visit to the Rothko Chapel with my grandparents.

Those emotions have all found their way to the surface again due to a story I’m working on dealing with the relationships we have with our elders and the world of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. Like all the stories that came before this one, I can only hope to share it with you on the big screen one day. One day.

When I lived in Denton, Texas, I had the opportunity to view dozens of paintings from Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park Series at the Fort Worth Modern. But before that, way back in 1996, I wrote a paper for my 20^th Century Art class comparing Diebenkorn’s 1970 painting

Ocean Park No. 29

to Amedeo Modigliani’s 1918 portrait

Boy in Short Pants (Le Garcon au Culottes’).

Both were, at the time, available for our viewing pleasure on the walls of the Dallas Museum of Art. Hey Dallas, are they still there? I’d visit but it’s 93 degrees in your city right now.

Where is that paper? Here it is. My grade: A-. Comments: “Well written and sensitive formally”.

Was I crazy in my quest? Possibly. While I’m sure I wanted to write a decent analysis, I’m fairly certain my main goal was making a lasting impression on my young and attractive Art History professor. I’ll keep whether this goal worked out or not to myself.

What I hope to have shared with you is that it's okay to fall in love with blurbs of color, a view outside an obscure window, a strip of rust on a utility pole, or anything else that makes your heart flutter. I fall in love on a daily basis and I hope the same for you.

p.s. - the first two images are from the Tualatin Wildlife Refuge. If you live in the area try and take a walk there some time.