Drawing Distinctions - Or…Horizons, By Another Name

This series resulted from a conceptual convergence: 

First, I’m fascinated by the variegated backgrounds I paint. I think of them as complex color fields. They often stand on their own. 

However, I also have this idea that emerged from another fascination: Drawing Distinctions. 

That concept arose from an glimmering sparked 50 years ago by my encounter with, G. Spenser Brown’s book, Laws of Form. In it, he made this statement that was sufficiently profound it has haunted me all that time. The sequence starts: 

“Draw a distinction……Call it the first distinction…..” Then, liberally paraphrased, it continues: Think of this move as creating things to consider where there were none before. And, once created, these distinctions exist; they articulate aspects of our world we had never before registered. Maybe a this side and a that side. A symmetry and an asymmetry…. 

Combining my backgrounds with a different, narrow, jagged, contrasting slash of colors creates a distinction, both with the severing by a boundary and the contrast in colors and textures.