Empty Boxes 2019

It's the end of May and cold, wet and dreary. Even the cat returned early from his morning border patrol duty of the property. Now he is lying in front of the fire cleaning the twigs and leaves from his wet fur. I retrieved my winter fur lined boots from the closet in order to warm up my feet. I felt it was a good day to stay out of the studio and let things 'gel' as I like to call it. I have so many large works in process that I can barely fit into the room. Hopefully some will go out soon to juried shows and then I can start two more even larger pieces. I guess reading the Agnes Martin Biography this winter had a large impact on me. After she abandoned NYC at the height of her career in the 60's and went to NM to live a solitary life on top of a mesa, she proceeded to rework canvases for several years.
When I returned from FL this spring, I went into the basement where I have my 'graveyard' of old paintings, and retrieved 5 half finished large panels. Using all the techniques I learned over the past few years studying with RC and LB, I proceeded to launch into the panels. Basically they were all part of my long ago series called 'Vanishing Landscapes'. Some of the panels were 16 years old. But now I have about 5 of them finished though I feel I could work on them forever. I think I  am finished  with one but then I seem to go further on the next one so the one before does not seem complete. After I finally do finish these 5, I will take the large painting off the wall of the living room and tear into that diptych which will become 2 separate paintings. I continue to use the old hardware and some collage of music and poetry.
One of the best advancements I feel I made was to remove all the objects that I had inserted in the boxes attached to the panels. They now remain empty, floating in the abstract landscape adding a haunting feeling to the works. Both of these are 60 x 42 inches.