In my series entitled, “Hopscotching through Time,” each color block represents a numbered block in this children’s game. I’ve replaced numbers 1 through 10 with 1, 9, 6 and 5, the year in which I was born. If studied closely one can see in each painting smaller four-number sets, all more recent than 1965. These were personal benchmarks.
Time is often represented by numbers, daily, monthly and annually, for instance. A year could be perceived as simply a marker, with no significance, or it might represent the most important events a person experiences, something defining. Seeing a four-digit year, then, can prove a stimulating trigger or be devoid of meaning.
The four pieces are to display my birth year left to right: 1, 9, 6 and 5. Though this is viewed as hopscotching across four blocks, it is not intended to be viewed as ‘in one piece’. Rather, each block in this sequence has its own character.
“Hopscotch #1,” the first painting, is a depiction of some far distant moment in life.
For “Hopscotch #9, my second square, I asked myself: how significant are major historical events to an individual? What about from 1842 to 2046? A number of events depicted here may be tangential to some while others may feel hopeless or helpless.
In the third square, I represent the status of an inescapable course of events with a big loop that depicts the number 6.
In Hopscotch #5,” my last square, I depicted the struggle between two forces: the constraint of history unfolding against the will of individuals to reject predetermination. These color blocks exhibit rock-like texture to represent a shaping force. Cloud-like strokes break solid color blocks into fragments, a symbol of individuals’ spontaneity and awareness.