Curls And Twirls

Lately, I’ve been wanting to make a tessellation that was missing some pieces so that it ultimately falls apart. A tessellation is a self-contained world made up of the repeated reflection of one form and its perfect complement. It’s wholly dependent on all the pieces being there, and as long as they are it’s a stable and beautiful thing.

I think this painting was borne out of those thoughts, just from a different angle. It started as a drawing of smoke – I love watching smoke curl and twirl in the air and have yet to come close to doing it justice in art. But as I worked on rough sketches I looked at what I had so far and realized that the dragon could have been guarding anything; treasure, baby dragons, chocolate covered espresso beans. Instead, I kept placing hatched and empty eggs beside it. This wasn't intentional - I've found that if I think too hard about what I'm drawing I end up with an awkward mess.

Once a week, my children go to their mom’s house. It’s been almost two years and I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the sense of loss and identity crisis that goes along with their absence. As far as I’m concerned, this is still a painting of smoke. But I’m not ignoring the fact that the dragon is alone in his cave, guarding nothing.