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I am not an abstract painter and am not sure it's anything I have a "feel" for. But here's what happened. We just did a remodeling which gave us an enlarged master bathroom. Our decorator friend Howard suggested that for artwork we have a painting full of all kinds of colors making no attempt to "match" the color scheme in the bathroom. Big and vivid was the plan. So I painted a whimsical grand piano full of colors not known to any grand piano and possibly not even to anything known in nature.

It was soundly vetoed by both Crystal and Howard as "NOT for the bathroom." So I asked Crystal what subject matter she envisioned and she said "I don't know, maybe something abstract."

In my years of painting I attempted an abstract only once before, just some goofing off I did in the last few minutes of studio time with a spare smallish canvas. Crystal liked it and so it currently lives in a corner of the sunroom.

My painting friend Courtney can paint abstracts like nobody's business. Again, I have no feel for it, but (shh, don't tell Courtney), maybe I could try something sorta kinda like what she does.

Total failure.

The painting which I have called "January," bears as much resemblance to one of her works as it does to Bugs Bunny. 

During the painting process, another painting friend, Ginger, suggested I turn the thing upside down. When I did, we both saw sort of a hint of a landscape. Maybe a little forest pond at the edge of some overgrowth. Death knell to the abstract process, because I could not help but try to make it look more like a forest pond, brambles, even whispers of trees. It ended up looking like nothing and when it was becoming just an exercise in moving mud around the canvas I abandoned all hope. No abstracts for me.  Here it is.

But a couple of days later I turned it back over again, with the lighter part at the top, the way the painting started. And it made me say "hmmm." I kind of like it this way. Is it abstract? Does is show some kind of meadow or something with a forest and weird sky in the background? Gotta be honest: beats the shit out of me. All I know is I prefer it this way. I'd almost go so far as to say I like it.

This is the first time in my painting career that I've had to ponder the question of which side of a painting is up.

And I've no idea whether it will end up in the bathroom...