There was a Victorian floral painting in my parents living room in the house I grew up in. It was painted on glass, both sides of the glass, with foil behind it popping through the unpainted bits. I can’t say I loved the piece but I do attribute it to my education.

Throughout my art life I have always loved painting clear canvas. The ability to paint on both sides of a clear canvas is still full of potential. since I started using glass. Glass in frames. Glass as canvas. But glass can shatter.

To shatter or not shatter? That was too harrowing a question for me to continue asking so I shifted from to clear polycarbonates. Mylar, Plexi, acetate. And now, because of projects leftovers, laminates have been added to my clear canvas lineage. The technical plus about laminates is that it can have structure and be easily cut.

In this laminate leftover, it’s clear property allowed me to leave the top of his hat transparent. Clear top invites environment in. With no shattering possible.

This piece was made between Christmas and New Years 2022. I had an overwhelming urge to do something and went to my work space. I had leftover laminate from a project and began. This was not for anyone waiting to receive it. It was for me because I was compelled. Don’t wait. Do.

I had just made a Christmas gift with another leftover laminate from the same project and liked how the big jewels performed. They have their own presence. I’d never used them much, hadn’t had them long, and went for them in this new piece. A The big jewels were first, and most curious to me. They were in my supplies. I had never embraced them or used them with gusto prior to a gift I made days earlier in a Christmas gift I made. Also laminate.

I use craft materials like precious gems. I did not know until recently that those large gems have holes in their base so costume designers can sew through and secure them to garments. I look at the many perforations as structural opportunity for the paint to hold them in place. Everything on this piece was me saying “Don’t wait.”

The last, the string. My friend, longest friendship I have to this day, we met in college freshman year, sent me home from her apartment with baked goods in a small white baker box. The string impressed me, so toothy and thick. When I got home I spooled it and left it next to my work desk. After the entire portion of the face was done and dry I saw the string and said “Don’t wait.” Do something with it. See.

I’m going on, but let me set the stage. The laminate is 11″x17″. Hat Guy was cut out of this 11″x17″ sheet.

What I had seen in the piece before the string was a man dancing on land. Or at least legs splayed on land. On a horizontal. It ended with the branches. The string suggested the face. And the white boarder of the printed sheet suggested a hat rim. The technical leap, for me, was seeing the clear edge of the laminate as usable. It could be cut, I could shape the brim. Adhere the string with a miniscule applicator so it holds to the laminate from behind. And that in being affixed it would hold shape. It still has it’s toothless. The body happened as an extension, cut to this form, then finished with leftover materials from previous projects and supplies I have at the ready.

I now remember the reason for this piece. And the reason for the green and gold chest. My great friend, who is Italian, took ill, December 12th. Many people in the city were getting ill. Wasn’t Covid, wasn’t the flu. I couldn’t visit or help. I couldn’t do anything. But I also couldn’t continue not doing anything. I had to do something. And this Hat Guy was it. The impulse was my friend’s woes.

This post has been helpful to me. I have Hat Guy here at my studio because at the time we felt his cats, two brothers, would dismantle it. Now I think, while they have some weight, museum putty would due for hanging it.

My friend is vastly better at this writing. Hat Guy is in my studio and I’m enjoying it. With all life’s challenges I find it a constant joy to behold.

Hat Guy

2022, 10″x 9″, acrylic and mixed medium on laminate.