This project afforded me the opportunity to carelessly dump and splash cups of paint onto blank canvas, and I’m happy for that. My challenge was then to make sense of the resulting markings by shaping a new and in places, representational, composition from them without destroying their original freshness, force, and variety. My creative methods serve as echoes to the conceptual inspirations, which birthed them. They are described in the vision below.
From early October 2007
Music played and voices sang; we waited for the man to speak. During the waiting, my mind wandered into subconscious spaces, into a vision. The scene was of a single grape being pressed, crushed. The grape’s juices flowed to fill a frail ceramic cup with what had instantly become a rich red wine. But before the wine would crest its brim, the cup suddenly fell to a white marble floor shattering, disintegrating into tiny particles. The wine dispersed violently while the cup’s fragments became utterly indistinguishable from the floor itself. Unshackled from the confines of clay, the red wine flowed freely, taking on its own form against the stone. The music faded, but I found I was still consumed by the vision and its startling intensity. I asked God for clarity. Then the man began to speak. To my surprise, he announced that we would be sharing the Eucharist together that morning. To my utter amazement, he went on to explain that we’d be doing things a bit differently this time, specifically that the drinking of wine would be replaced that morning by the eating of grapes—an unusual twist on an established ritual which would forever engrave this vision onto my memory.
Inside Outside
Vine fruit crushed between teeth
Wine concealed and consumed
Filling dirt vessels bent on relief
Dispersed, no longer entombed