The Voice in Vernie’s Head

thevoiceinvernieshead

It’s true that I frequently don’t know what I’m painting, at least not in the beginning. Sometimes the imagery becomes clear long before the title and finding a title is a struggle. Sometimes the title pops into my head fairly early in the painting process. I was listening to the Blind Melon songs “Vernie,” and “Mouthful of Cavities” over and over while I was painting this one.

 

3 responses to “The Voice in Vernie’s Head

  1. That is SO cool.

    When I write it’s the same for me. Sometimes a title comes to me before I even sit down to write a piece. Other times it’s like pulling teeth to find the title.

    I guess art is art.

  2. I guess art is art, WGB- I had imagined it would be easier to find the perfect words to entitle a work of words, but apparently not. I think about music and how some titles seem unrelated to the content. “McArthur Park,” comes to mind, as does Satie’s “Embryons Desseches.” But I suspect Satie was being deliberately snotty and provocative with that one.

    I’m tempted at times to resort to numbers instead of titles for paintings, for fear I’ll regret an unwise combination of words. Ridiculously neurotic, I know. Titling is at any rate more enjoyable than writing a statement about the work, which always feels painful and pointless to me. I remember somebody saying something to the effect that writing about one’s painting is like dancing about one’s doctoral thesis. I wish I could remember who…

  3. Oh, that’s a great line! Yeh, I understand the incongruity. In Grad School they had a research expo and we in the humanities were asked to do a poster session. HUH? That’s for the sciences. We deliver papers, well-written (hopefully) and read to an attentive (hopefully) audience. It was really weird creating a poster about a research essay…

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