Is It Something In The Air?

Some people have expressed surprise at my newest series, "The Lightness of Being", since it seems like such a departure from my previous work.

I have asked myself, 'Where did this come from?" I go back and forth from figurative to abstract, but these paintings are encaustic and mixed media with a lot of mark making,

The work in this series does change with each painting as I incorporate various techniques. It was a new direction for me; then I began to see similar work online; very similar, but usually painted with acrylic rather than encaustic. Is the energy and inspiration for this style in the air, the cosmos? These other artists do not live close to me, nor would I have ever seem them if it weren't for Pinterest and other art sites.

I remember seeing an exhibit from the Society of Layerists about 15 years ago in the Southern Oregon University and thinking, "Perhaps that is what I am - a layerist. The Society of Layerists in Multi Media describe their artist process as:

"SLMM’s late mentor, expressed an idea that is relevant to Layering: "Energy that connects everything is a cosmic web— this includes information from the collective unconscious, the metaphysical as well as the physical."..."The society reports that many members follow a personal path of aesthetics combined with an active interest in wholeness."'..

I now claim to be a layerist. I don't feel the need to join the society, just keep painting.

Below is a painting from a series that I made several years ago. Very different, don't you think?

I still love painting figuratively, but I want to keep painting abstractly for the time being.

Here is the finished work. The Lightness of Being #11, It is heavy with encaustic

This was a few weeks ago. 

This was after many days of work where I was getting frustrated and covered everything with muted white encaustic