Playing by Ear / Playing by Heart

I was recently invited to join some incredibly talented artists and musicians at Conception III. Since it’s a group show, there’s limited wall space for my paintings and most of them won’t fit, so rather than just put one or two up, I decided to try to get some new, smaller works ready in time. I’ve had a few smaller canvasses that had been abandoned lying around, and this was one of them: an improvisation that went nowhere – originally titled “Improv in F”.

I started by flipping it, paintin the parts that I didn’t like blue, and adding a violin’s F hole. Still not much happening.

The big inspiration came when I realized that the painting needed heart.

Heart looks like an Octopus. Hmmm – this needs a tentacle.

Somehow the violin made a reappearance in the end of the tentacle. Came up with the title “Playing by Heart”.

Now the blues started to look too plain so I started messing with them. That seemed to carve out an upside-down ear shape on the left.

So I went to work on the ear, but to do that I flipped the canvas over. Now I like it better this way up. Maybe I’ll call it “Playing by Ear” instead.