Continuing with last week’s theme of people in buildings and the world of stories each building contains, here’s an example of an artist that made a painting made of paintings:
Each of those windows looks into a different Edward Hopper scene, and that’s Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks” in the center. What’s even more impressive about this painting is that Phil Lockwood himself goes into the details of his creative process while creating it.
On that page, he starts by saying, “The starting point (inspiration) for this painting was seeing people working in an office block in the evening. I liked the feeling of ‘looking in’ at a world of activity and not really knowing what they were doing.” I deeply know that feeling: it’s why I’m drawn to Saint Etienne’s album cover or this painting. What’s great about being a writer is that you can get to know what they’re doing by creating it yourself.
Even if this isn’t your sort of thing, you absolutely must go to his site and click through the images he took while painting it. He breaks down the painting from the rough sketch stage all the way through completion. You get to see how his idea of simply making a painting with a single Hopper homage grows and transforms into one that brilliantly manages to make an entire block full of them. You see that the reference you may have thought the painting was originally constructed around (Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks”) wasn’t actually even in the original conception. You see the changes that needed to be made as the painting grew into itself and found its voice, just as a novel changes as it grows. He even dates each snapshot so you can follow the chronology of the painting.
Going to his website is the best ten minutes you’ll spend all day. It’s not often that I say, “Hey, go read something besides my site,” but you’ll learn about the creative process and its twists, turns, and bumps if you do yourself the favor. If you like it as much as I do, you can even have him make you a print to hang on your own wall. I know what I’m asking the wife for this Christmas.
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