We Do What We're Told

Each color patch is a glued-on painted square of canvas, all on another loose piece of canvas, creating a great texture, depth, and line-work, followed by pencil and pastel on the canvas. It creates a very dense looking piece...some great color relationships and just a generally appealing composition. I think the title, which is taken from a song off the album being listened to, applies to the piece in a number of ways...in an odd way, it links to following my initial idea...making the attempt to use the color patches instead of painting directly on the piece. On the other hand, it's a piece that starts with a completely different technique, stepping away from comfort and solid direction. I'm following my idea, but that idea is foreign...untested. "we do what we're told" is such a submissive phrase...one full of helplessness. and this piece, the blocks seem to trap the linework and markings...they falls one on top of the other into a random pile, while the markings meander between the squares, trying to break free of the concrete structures...even the squares themselves fall over one another, breaking the rigidity of the piece...They seem to orient themselves like a scene from tetris, interlocking and overlapping...is it a predetermined composition? a path that will inevitably lead to a set result or is it a randomly falling, in-equally compressed pile of color, always changing, always dependant on the things around it...

To tell the truth I'm not sure. I don't remember what the initial thought resembled. Was I doing what I had predetermined; in that helpless, effectless way simply placing the pieces where they were already destined? Are the pieces simply doing what I told them or am I, in some subconscious way, the one performing as directed?