prompt 3 belatedly

In taking Jasper Johns’ advice, I started with a small brown paper bag without knowing what I wanted to make out of it. Paper bags are malleable and stiff and hold their form quite well after manipulation. I decided to crush and fold it, letting my hands sort of do what they wanted until in the shape of the bag I recognized some kind of form, worthy in one way or another to be retained, which I would then react to. Becoming aware of my impulse to do that seemed to me the benefit of this assignment. Following such a stripped-down version of the artistic process allows you to be more clearly aware of what actually makes up that process—the kind of repeated narrowing down of formal and creative possibilities of a specific piece/material through work and reflection, each act a decision to solidify the endless potential decisions into a single concrete form to which you then react in order to come up with more creative possibilities. As I warped and shifted the bag I started recognizing elements of a figure, which I then emphasized, and started making structural adjustments to that figure. 

Eventually it seemed clear to me that I had made a figure draped in a long robe or dress, seated, and holding a sort of bundle in its open arms, so I decided to stop shaping the bag and begin painting it as the Virgin Mary with child (perhaps pressing her cheek to it). As I painted, various “mistakes” and realizations (the figures is more matronly, the top of the head sort of resembles a medieval hat, the bundle’s head has kind of a snout, etc.) led me to go in different direction. I now imagine that I’ve created a royal dachshund wetnurse, or someone cradling their favorite beagle, or a cook en route to dropping a rabbit into a pot, something like that.