1. STOP, LOOK AND THINK before you scroll down to each section.

2. Here are a few facts about my artwork: Title: “Sailing,” size: 12” by 12” by 1 ½”, medium: mixed (art tissue, acrylic), created in 2020. This information may or may not verify or affect your first response. Now that you have some details, compare your thoughts and feelings to your first response (image only). Is there anything about the painting and title that clicks with your perceptions? Did you notice more things knowing my title?

3. Here’s the story: In 2019, I began a series of new works by layering art tissue over older paintings (Judy’s Journal, 2019 September). This was a way to let go of less successful work and, frankly, not add to my storage problem by making a new piece from a blank canvas or board. The act of choosing the “doomed” artwork became part of the process. For “Sailing” the under painting was a series’ finale made in 2010, “Landscape Mosaic XXI” (Judy’s Journal 2008 August). After 10 years, it looked forced and rough and ready for an afterlife. There was no checklist to help in the decision – just a gut feeling. Fact: instead of destroying paintings, most artists reuse them. X-rays often reveal past iterations of many great works.

Can you see parts of the older painting peeking through? You may be noticing my version of patterns made by grout lines between pieces of broken pottery. I was inspired by a visit to Parc Güell in Barcelona. The structure of the new painting was supplied by those lines. I was grateful to have a skeleton for the new body that covered it. A startling blue insinuated itself into the new painting and ushered it into another life.