Eddie Ruscha Essay
#36 Jeff Colson (Visiting Painting)
#37 Eddie Ruscha (Response painting)
First off, who doesn’t like a good game of Telephone? I like to see the mangling and re-mangling. An idea misconstrued. One person hears one thing and another hears another, another. An other version. Versioning excursions. A continuing re-mix.
When I first opened the well designed, sturdy, protective crate, I saw the painting you see here of a haphazardly put together wooden contraption. Oddly enough, I felt a kinship to it because I used to draw absurd formations made out of planks of wood many years ago. In any case, I guess I would say my first thought was to go against what I saw and tighten up the lines. I guess I wanted it to be more like a fake marble hall in an obsolete hotel. I knew it wouldn’t be complete without some black inky oil dripping onto it down from the unknown.
I am happy with the results. I think the next person who gets to re-interpret mine may indeed bring it back down to the softer lines of the painting before. Maybe they will paint my image in a far away landscape about to get run over by a gigantic cosmic bulldozer. They might be so determined to derail the image and in turn paint something entirely new, but we just can’t be sure until all are seen.