'Struggle' Turns into 'Heavenly Dutch Windmill' by C.T. Rasmuss.

                      Heavenly Dutch Windmill  C.T. Rasmuss, oil/acrylic colle (June 2013).


With this one, I started off with a blank canvas(of course), but the finished work shown here, is entirely different from what it was just the nite before last.  I finished a painting that I wasn't sure about, if it was finished or a just complete mess.  It was very dark & chaotic, and I saw it as a metaphor for my struggles, I mean clear as day; but it showed me winning in this struggle...I was 'stamping' out the enemy.  And after a few days my victory was obvious and I was tired of looking at the ugly residue!!!

                                        'Struggle', no longer exists...reference above work.


So I decided I was going to 'stamp' this image out of existence, for real..."I want Beauty", I thought to myself..."I don't need to be reminded of its ugliness, not in the least".

When I started out originally I had no idea what I was going to do, I was practicing a subconscious technique, which obviously worked, "but could it be done again? is this the final product or is there a second part to this interpretive metaphor?"; only one way to find out and I took the hard way out!

I recalled a student of mine asking me "do you ever paint off the top of your head?";  that day I answered with a quick painting(Top of the Floral), off the top of my head...and now this day I realized, after spending many more hours on 'Struggle' that The finished piece now known as 'Heavenly Dutch Windmill' is what was off the top of my head, the 1st ugly one is what got me there, a Metamorphosis if you will.  I win!

                                            Top of the Floral mentioned above C.T. Rasmuss

What is in A Name?

             China Sky, C.T.Rasmuss (2011)



"well done, revolutionary and transient and yet permanent as an experience here this photo." 
 
                                                                                                                  Fred Tarr

I'd like to thank my friend and colleague Fred for this comment on my painting that I posted in an artist group on FB; as I was pondering on what approach I would take on understanding my painting 'outloud' earlier today.

Before I came across this comment, my approach was going in the direction of discussing the way I came up with the title for the artwork; months after I had finished it, I picked it up for about the 8th or 10th time and it suddenly came to me, China Sky.  Able to reflect on this piece again, I realized the most important aspect of this piece(to me as the artist); I look at it and think of China, because of the correlation to the sun coming up over the Himalayans and their national flag for some reason.  

I get a pure satisfaction gazing into it, similar to peering up to the sky on a uniquely beautiful morning, but as if I had been in China which I've never been to.  Hence the close relation to my friends response, an act of fate if you will; all boiling down to a title that makes sense to me because I realize it's not an abstract but a transient..experience, a truth derived from pure creativity and resolution by way of giving the experience a Name.


C.T. Rasmuss