Recent Influences- Drum Paintings

After starting the fourth painting of drums, I started to mine the library for possible reference points, or influences that I may have overlooked. Though a painting like "Paradiddle" was originally inspired by a WPA photograph of a marine drummer, the subsequent works are turning out to be something different. It's more about the idea of combining landscape with these monumental, floating objects in a way that feels natural. The way the painting asserts itself, and (hopefully) the consistency of light will make these paintings believable. I was reminded of the water-towers of Bernd and Hilla Becher last week while working on the new photo show at the MFA (Conversations). They are great to look at to get a sense of immense weight as well as the gratifying bulk of elliptical forms. This led me back to a more ingrained influence from childhood- the fantasy story of "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". If you're not familiar with the land of Chewandswallow, it is a place where food falls from the sky and meals are dictated by weather patterns. This book is one of my earliest visual memories; the illustrations by Ron Barrett are amazing- beautifully composed with humor and a sort of epic sense of scale (pancake covers school, man lost in pea soup fog). Looking through it again, I was struck by the Jell-o mold image, as well as the hamburgers floating in the sky (see above). All objects that don't belong, set convincingly in the landscape. It's a kids book, but then again I'd consider the drums to be a sort of fantasy element as well; an instrument indicative of rhythm, order and action. As the paintings continue to develop and change, it's good to identify these reference points and for me, it's one of the more interesting parts of making art; making work and finding clues afterwards.