The Story Behind “Watching Bubbles”

Finally in a clear box again! For my graduate show and thesis, I created work that was my digital art printed on multiple transparent sheets and hung together in layers in a hand-made plexiglass box. At the time, I wanted to pursue the work further but I wouldn’t say I liked building the boxes. I just wanted to focus on painting. Now over 20 years later, I am presenting my work in a clear acrylic box again! This time painting directly on the transparent substrate instead of printing on it. I began to introduce working on clear substrates again in my work three years ago for my Teeny Tiny Trifecta submissions. The ideas of color on a clear surface and the layering possibilities were pursuits I felt I needed to finish exploring. This was a chance to start experimenting again on a small scale. For the current “Watching Bubbles” collection I am working from front to back starting with dark blue paint strokes. After I let the dark blue dry, I laid the transparent sheet over different colors of paper to see which layering looked best. I was torn between leaving the blue transparent so that it could interact with light coming through or painting opaque colors behind it. In the end, I chose to paint the opaque colors because I just loved the way it looked. The painting process involved waiting for each layer to dry before adding another layer. I could only see the full effect once it was dry, and I also had to flip the sheet over to look at it from the front. This method of working was more indirect and required more patience than I was used to, but it was a change of pace that I occasionally crave. The color layering reminded me of the bubbles I loved closely watching change colors when I was a child. A prompt by Jerry Saltz @jerrysaltz brought this experience forward from my memories when he showed pictures of children becoming artists by first watching their effects on mud puddles. He asked, “When did you become an artist”? I immediately thought of blowing bubbles in the rain in our apartment parking lot and being mesmerized by the changing colors. These “Watching Bubbles” works will be on view @secondstreetgallery during the month of September.