The quilterly paintings of Ellsworth Kelly
And how colors can help you time travel
In her book, BIG MAGIC, Elizabeth Gilbert offers the thesis that a creative idea is a “disembodied, energetic life form” that floats around in the ether and occasionally visits us humans, hoping that someone will translate it into the physical world. Most of the time, we brush off these visits. We spend our lives saying “no” or “maybe later” to creative ideas, which sends them off to visit someone else. But occasionally, we are open and relaxed enough to say “yes”, and that’s when a certain kind of magic slips through.
This is a story about saying “yes” and the magic that ensued.
A few weeks ago, I came across artist Ellsworth Kelly, an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker. In 1951, after mostly painting figures in greyscale during WWII, Kelly made an exuberant departure from his previous work. He moved to the South of France, where one afternoon he found himself walking along the River Seine. He noticed the sun reflecting on the surface of the water, casting sparkles of light and color in random, undulating patterns. He decided to paint it.
The result is a series of 8 paintings, each one is a large grid with random arrangements of brightly colored squares. To replicate the element of random chance that he saw in the river reflections, Kelly used numbered slips of paper pulled from a hat to select which hue to paint in any given square.
For Kelly, chance and unpredictability were tools to explore new color pairings that he wouldn’t have otherwise chosen. By removing himself from the decision-making process of painting, he uncovered new ways to arrange and experience color relationships.
These paintings are flat but not static. Some of the paintings have an undulating movement in the arrangement of squares and colors; others vibrate and buzz with energy as the eye hops around the canvas. They remind me of the sparkling surface of lakes, pixellated galaxies, and technicolor TV static.
I was struck by how much these paintings also looked like quilts — the flat colors and square grids are obvious parallels. What appealed to me the most, though, was Kelly’s process. By relying on random chance to create the composition, he removed himself from he decision-making process entirely, detaching himself from the results.
Without so many decisions getting in the way, the maker can focus on the making, rather than the outcome. As someone who is prone to overthinking every detail in all aspects of her life, I immediately saw the genius behind this approach. I’ve been feeling a quilting project coming on for months, but every time I get serious about it, I am paralyzed by indecision.
With Kelly’s approach, I felt like I became a vessel through which the universe sews a quilt. It’s an act of surrender and trust. Instantly I knew I had to say yes, so I dug out my scraps and got to work.
Exploring color
I pieced the quilt in blocks of nine 2.5-inch squares. To pick colors, I used a random number generator and a formula that weighted the probability of colors more heavily in the center of the quilt, because I liked that compositional element in some of Kelly’s works.
Since I was using fabric scraps of varying hues and tones, I bucketed color families together to represent one number. For example, all cool greens corresponded to one number and all warm greens and chartreuses corresponded to another number.
I assembled one block at a time, pulling random numbers as I went along. There’s something delightful about watching a quilt reveal itself block by block. Each new combination of 9 squares brought fresh color combinations, but what surprised me most was the strong associations that each collection of colors conjured in me.
Blocks with clay pinks and terra cottas reminded me of a road trip where I drove aimlessly for a month through the sandstone canyons of the Southwest. Blocks with pastels and a vivid fuchsia pink brought back childhood memories of Easter Sunday and hunting for plastic eggs in the tulips. Blocks with bright primary colors reminded me of that one early morning when I watched in awe as hundreds of colorful hot air balloons lifted off over the New Mexico desert.
It’s tempting to describe this experience as “meditative” because it forced me to be present in the moment, accepting and appreciating whatever colors unfolded and releasing any expectations about the future. But I was also time traveling with each color memory that surfaced. So I was existing both in the present moment and also simultaneously inhabiting another time, place, and version of myself.
It’s funny how colors are so tightly linked to experiences and emotions, often much deeper than we realize. And all I had to do to expose those roots was to switch off my pre-frontal cortex for a few hours. Like magic.
Perhaps this is what Ellsworth Kelly meant when he said that he made the color paintings above to “learn about color relationships”. It’s not just about what colors you think look nice next to others, it’s more about what those colors do to you; how they make you feel and what they help you remember.
I’m half way through this quilt, but I already know I’ll be making another (in a true homage to Ellsworth Kelly, maybe a series?). For one thing, I have many more scraps to use up, but more importantly, I’m just beginning to explore color and how to use it.
Until next time,
Stacey
P.S. - For a superb exploration of color and how it shapes our experience of the world, check out this post by Lindsay Stripling of Earthling:
What a wonderful, freeing way of acting on creative urges! I would love to know more about your formulas and how you weighted more color towards the center.
I love the idea of a random number generator to,take oneself out of the decision making process. I was weaving placemats and threw 1/2” fabric strips into a paper bag and as chance would have it , they turned out better than I thought.