Janet Stafford
Statement
2009

I work in series of paintings, the subject matter of which has shifted from the clearly narrative to more poetic to the symbolic. I used to tell stories about things that happen in ordinary individuals' lives – mini synopses – and use thoughts common to us all. Then I showed ideas or material things that I thought were interesting, and that I hoped were universally so. I usually considered my chosen images to be beautiful – the desert, the ocean, the planets, my friends.

Now I favor painting and showing a thing that can symbolize "all life," everything. There is no story, just an arrangement of surfaces; I am working with images of trees and parts of trees.

The tree has been used as a symbol for many things for a long time, of course, yet it is still being used by artists to stand for a kind of humanity, the beauty of nature and planet earth, a kind of strength, a kind of timelessness, a kind of being, a human being. It is a familiar and accessible image. The tree is a positive symbol! And it looks good – green or multicolored or just branches reaching out like arms or tentacles; strong, sturdy trunks that support and sway and sometimes break; grounded yet reaching upward.

Recently, in addition to my on-going series "Natural History," I have worked with paper and ink and an actual part of a tree to produce a kind of hand painted image. These images are very abstract, and the pieces range from 20" x 30" to 5' x 10'. They are the most immediate paintings I have produced. I wanted to get as close as I could to my object and work "with" it as opposed to "from" it. I didn't want to be removed. I was after a different process than the one I normally use, which is thinking a long time about something, photographing that idea, and then using the photographs as a basis for making a series of paintings. I appreciate my immediate work in the context of my time consuming, very detailed "regular" work.

Several encounters have influenced my immediate work. I think of the artist Yves Klein: putting "Yves Klein Blue" paint on a model's body and dragging her across a piece of paper or simply laying her on the paper and pressing. I love that work!

I saw the video "In My Language" by A.M. Baggs (a/k/a silentmiaow), an autistic person and autism activist. Baggs' video is about the distinctive ways she experiences and interacts with the world, and there was a part in it where she was rubbing her face on a book she had been reading. That seemed so true; I really felt it! That video really stayed with me; it seemed meaningful and beyond my day-to-day experience. So I thought I might try rubbing and pressing my body against a tree and see what happened.

I was very satisfied with my immediate paintings, and I plan to continue using that process from time to time. There is something about the body making the work, the pressing, the getting close, that is so raw and sensual, and delightful. It is nearly the opposite of my customary carefully considered and meditative way of working. I like to imagine these two so different kinds of work, that result from such dramatically different processes, together in the same room.