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Previously I used the path of Hurricane Katrina for a dot painting. It was only natural that I do one for Hurricane Rita. The weekend the storm hit the Gulf coast, I joined a couple of friends to see the film “Pretty Persuasion.” It was filmed at the same school used in “Donnie Darko.” The pinks and blues were derived from the colors of school uniforms in the film. Boys had blue shirts and girls had pink ones. A light blue line of dots marks the storm's path.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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This past week a local radio host brought up the subject of Hurricane Rita and how some people have forgotten about the damage Hurricane Rita did to Louisiana. Five years ago I was toying with returning home. But with Hurricane Rita on the way, roads were closed into New Orleans. By this point I had already visited many of the art museums in Memphis. So, I searched for places to go in Nashville.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

I made a day trip to Nashville to see several art exhibitions. One place I traveled to was Cheekwood. It is an art museum and botanical garden. While exploring the gardens there, I visited a Japanese Garden. In it was a corridor with walls of dark green bamboo. Following my day trip I created this painting.

This painting was a turning point for my series. Something clicked while I was painting this one. Not only was I inspired to finish it. But suddenly I had ideas for more paintings.

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The palette I used for this painting was also inspired by colors I saw at a Malco movie theater. Unlike the previous palettes, this one had more variations of brown and pink. Again I placed spirals in each of four squares that made up the painting. Even though I was pleased with the result, I wasn’t excited about the group of them as a whole. Something clicked when I created my next painting.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

fo

Let me start my post by saying that the title above begat the nomenclature for my 5” x 5” dot art paintings. In particular the letters “FO” appeared (and still do) on a prescription medication I’ve been taking since early August of 2005. The drug helps with triglycerides. While staying in Memphis, I was staring at one of these pills when the idea to play with the letter “o,” and other alphabet letters, came to me. The possible words formed, however, have nothing to do with the paintings. They are simply arbitrary names in spite of the fact that some of my titles may provoke giggles.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

As for the painting design, it consists of four squares containing spirals of dots inspired by the active hurricane season. Each spiral includes a transition from light to dark using tints of red, blue and purple. Again, I painted with colors already mixed. After completing this one, I was tired of the colors.

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When I painted this one, I went back to an old theme from college. I used to create off-balance-designs. It goes back to the odd camera angles I noticed in horror films and the old “Batman” series from the 60s. The odd angles disturb the viewers’ sense of balance and make viewers uneasy. The painting is my reaction to the horrific images from Katrina and the flood,


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

do

Although my palette had more blue in this painting, I completed it around the same time as the first three dot paintings. Again, I was influenced by colors I saw at the Malco movie theaters in Memphis. The pattern was not specifically derived from anything specific.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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Again I used the same palette to create this curved dot pattern. I don’t remember any specific reason for the pattern, but I painted this one around the time Hurricane Rita was hitting the Texas-Louisiana coastline. It was a stressful period.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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Having mixed too much paint I carried over the same colors into this piece. The lines of dots represent the flooding of New Orleans after the levees broke. One image, shown over and over again, was the flooding from a canal floodwall near my house. I live on the opposite side of the canal.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"