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Tom Ferguson |
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First |
NY but it was in Paris in 1970 that it jelled. I arrived at the Modern Museum with only a half hour before it closed so I nearly ran through the place. Passing the Kandinskys at that pace, trying to take them in, somehow it reached me, the obvious. Organized color, analogous to the organized sound that is music. A painting need not narrate a story, no more than does a piece of music. It was a thrill to me to realize this. I digested it and a year or so later began to play with creating linear patterning in my daily sketch books and soon followed in Painting, keeping to the 12 - 14" square canvases I had been using since spring 1969. At some point in 1971-2, I did a 5 x 4' canvas to summarize the exploration (Symphonic Cross- section) which I retain along with the first (this became a pattern, to do a larger canvas sort of summing up the focus before moving on).The others are all spread like spermatoza in the wind. I bought a decent S-8 camera in 1969 & discovered I couldn't afford the film except by doing time-lapse stuff. A 3" roll would last months. I'd carry it around & shoot street scenes & whatever caught my eye. I set up a tri-pod most noons to shoot a view of a fence in my yard, catching the seasons change. Later in Michigan I set it up pointed at a large window. I'd snap a few periodically during the day. I used the series for the semesterly required presentation we had to make to faculty. The film instructor invited me to switch my major... and I was tempted. Most of my studio credits were met by the art school transfer so the bulk of my classes were introductions to science, psychology, creative writing... I was in heaven. I'd sometimes find myself walking through a hallway and stopping, intriqued by the lecture spilling out of the room. I was abit obsessed but here was continued and tantalizing promise, to a bored person of very low self-esteem, of intellectual delight and personal growth. |
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