Abstract Falls

I created this based on my visits to Niagara Falls. I am originally from Western NY, and I will be having a show there this coming August. It is exciting to return to my hometown and have a show. Trying to abstract a landmark like Niagara Falls can be very difficult. How to you abstract it, yet contain it's awe. I used three different software programs, I also used a photo of the falls that I took and a photo of a painting I did. I intermixed them, layered them, and used some earth tones - somewhat as a rememberance to when I was a kid and we lived in Niagara Falls. It was very polluted then - we had Love Canal, we had many factories blowing god knows what into the atmosphere. But even with all that it was home.

Today was a day of "Owning It". If you own it, then you can control it - it can not control you. So I worked hard on some of the things that needed to be done. I will continue that trend this week, we schedules, goals, and checklists.

At one point I had a call from my friend, Jim - he is busy getting ready for his show this coming weekend. He had hoped to be farther in some paintings then he is. He was not sure, but he was conflicted with how some of the paintings were not turning out like the first few he did. I was reminded how I felt the other day when I was working on a piece - I was really intune with my inner voice, I knew every step and I took them. Then I was reminded of when I was painting in public - we only had 30 mins, I felt rushed, I had lots of unused paint - so I just started slapping it around trying to make something, but in the end it was just that a painting of the rushed emotion that was on the canvas, not the thoughtful layers, shapes, and forms of the previous work. So there is something to be said about trying to rush the artistic process, you might just loose some intriquing qualities along the way.

Copyright 2006 William H Miller All Rights Reserved