Detritus

I started working on a painting a while back -- let's say, mid-autumn 2015 -- I had this idea of creating a piece that was made with only the remnants of leftover paint and materials. It stemmed from a desire to have equipoise between being frugal & saving as much paint as possible, and challenging myself to use what would otherwise be refuse. 

Close up of Detritus. Work in progress.

How can we look at the discarded things around us and learn to look at it differently? What have you tossed from your life that could be recycled into something else? Would someone else view your garbage as trash, or as treasure? I challenge society to reconsider what it is we -- as a collective -- let go of so easily, and if we can redefine our unwanted possessions into something desired.

What other detritus of our lives have we cast off without seeing its beauty and value?

It's been many moons later and I've kept my original promise. Part of the reason it's taken so long is because I've only been using the residual mixed paint from my other paintings; sometimes I way over mix, and other times there's only a bit remaining. The main reason, though, is that as the painting slowly took its own shape over the last few months, I've not been using all the leftover paint all the times I've painted.

I started off by painting a base layer of black and gold paint across each half of the canvas. At some point I was working on a collage and had some scrap paper leftover (you can see it on the right hand side -- black with goldfish) that I affixed to it with acrylic medium. After that, it was a little of this & some of that. It's coming along nicely! Its transformation is not quite complete, but the journey there has been interesting, and fulfilling.

Aerial view of Detritus. Work in progress.

What would have been trash, is now treasure. Maybe. Almost. :)