Last week, I was an Italian pastry chef crafting an impasto piece, but this week, my journey took me to Paris, France to explore pointillism. Pointillism, developed by French post-impressionist Georges Seurat, is a painting technique using tiny dots of pure color that, from a distance, blend in the viewer’s eye. Sounds simple enough, right? If there’s one thing I’ve learned this semester, it’s that ‘simple’ can be a very deceptive word.
Gone were the grand, glorious, sweeping brush strokes I had grown to love. They were rudely pushed aside and replaced by short, staccato taps of brush on canvas. Dots. Yellow dots. Red dots. Blue dots. Dots. Dots. Dots. Then the dots became spots, and the spots became a confusing mess on my canvas. I thought I was in Paris–The City of Light–The City of Love–But there was nothing ‘light’ or ‘lovely’ about my pointillism piece.
Somewhere, in the middle of all those spots, it hit me. Much like my attempt at painting fabric, this was just another one of those bumps in the road. I can’t expect to love every excursion or every meal on my journey. And while the impasto piece was a decadent dark chocolate treat, my pointillism experience was one of those disagreeable bites that I tried to discreetly spit into my napkin. I strive to be a polite guest, so “Goodbye, Paris”–I don’t want to wear out my welcome. It’s time to grab my passport, and continue on to my next destination, but first I need to cleanse my palette, clear my head, and rub my eyes. For some reason, I’m seeing spots…
“It’s a Squash…” pointillism–acrylic on canvas
tamberrinoartstudio 