Lacuna, Week Word

Lacuna, our week word, means “an unfilled space or interval; a gap”. What a great word. Giving meaning to the space around something, not just the main object. Think of all the spaces in our lives. As an extremely curious and always trying to read about something new and exciting in physics or art kind of person, space is just as meaningful as the subject at hand. There is dark matter around matter. It is the energy that is not matter and actually comprises more of the universe than matter, has tons of energy(tons being used loosely here since there is no unit of measure in dark matter as yet) and we really don’t know much about this mysterious force. There is the pause in music, the lifting of the bow between violin measures, the pausing of the baton when directing, the taking of a breath in between phrases. The space between stanzas of a poem. Personal space, that imaginary space between you and the person you are communicating with.
Then in painting, there is negative space. This is the space between objects of the painting. You need to make them as beautiful as the rest of the painting, mainly in a subtle way, but always complimenting the larger piece. For example, in my painting “Majolica and Citrus” I painted shadows in grays and purples, and created them in a painterly fashion to give a romantic pleasurable feel to the other pieces of the still life.

In “Fiddlin’ With Matisse”, I gave the background a pattern of colors to be reminiscent of Matisse and his Morocco inspired paintings.

And finally, in my Gladiolas watercolor, I made the border around the flowers in a whimsical colorful pattern to highlight the center bouquet.

All in all, I think the space around can be as interesting as what is within the main subject.

Read more at: Autumn Leaves.