Thoughts on Abstraction... and layers and repainting and poetry and color...

I wanted to paint.

I painted just the other day, after a bit of a break -- something quick, in-the-moment, expressive: the kind of painting, the act of painting, that I really enjoy.

And I wanted to paint something for my mom and this big empty wall she's got.

It's summer and the beach has been on my mind.

So I started.

And this is what happened:

Pretty, I thought. But, also, maybe, kind of... boring? Too easy, too thin, too simple, too much clearly trying to be an ocean scene?

Maybe.

So I went back out to the studio. I went with that feeling of a little bit of recklessness: like, you know it's pretty the way it is, why are you gonna go cover it up? kind of like a foreshadowing type of feeling.

But I went anyway.

Mostly because I remembered all the times I pushed myself and took a risk and kept going and created something I hadn't planned to create, something that was meant to be, that I wasn't aware of... and that gave me all the permission I needed to go ahead and mess with the "pretty" thing.

And this is what happened:

then this...

The dots started to cover the ocean. And I kept going....

...until that ocean was pretty much gone.

but... was it?

I was thinking about those eye tests I used to strangely love, and about layers.

And I wrote a poem.

To the Artist:

Begin with the beach.

Start at the ocean.

Find joy.

Unfocus your sight.

Let it go fuzzy.

Remember the eye doctor’s office

when you were so little?

You always loved the color test.

All those little dots – 

You thought each page was a beautiful little painting

each with its own secret number.

Well, this, here, now, is your new secret:

There’s an ocean beneath you.

Beneath all your seemingly random dots of color

there’s an ocean –

wide,

fierce,

endless,

un-noticing of you, 

little you 

(special as you are).

But don't doubt for a second –

You are part of it.

You are needed here.

How else could they know it’s an ocean?

© Alana DeVito, 2025

***

And then, another poem came:

About Abstraction

Like Piet Mondrian said:

The emotion of beauty is always obscured by the appearance of the object. Therefore the object must be eliminated from the picture. 

And like my mom said (talking about someone smoking weed while hiking): 

How could he think he could improve on God’s creation? How could he think it would make this view, this experience, better than it already is?

And whether you agree or not with the sentiment, wouldn’t you agree that nature – 

the object itself –

is perfection, 

is beautiful, 

is exactly what it is meant to be?

Why would I spend my sweet precious time trying to make a second class copy?

Isn’t it more important, 

valuable, 

worthwhile, 

to create something new, inspired by that beauty — 

along with the questions and emotions and confusion and sometimes ugliness 

we’ve imparted on this world?

Isn’t that more the artist’s role?

Even if it looks messy and unrefined, 

it is a new object, 

a reflection, 

contemplation,

another way of communicating one’s place in this very specific time and space.

It is an outpouring of body, 

mind, 

heart, 

soul, 

swirled with everything this life is offering. 

Abstraction, then:

Taking a simplified 

authentic

rounded 

inclusive 

take on reality.

If you squint 

or close your eyes

and breathe

and wait

and breathe again...

can you feel it?

When you open your eyes...

do you see?

And when you close your eyes...

do you maybe see even more?

© Alana DeVito, 2025

*****

But... I missed the ocean.

I wanted it back.

(Maybe that's August talking.)

It wasn't quite enough to know that it was beneath all those dots.

So off I went to the studio.

I picked up oil sticks this time and swirled, blended, swirled, blended.

Playfully,

quickly,

brightly,

confidently --

(some of what I'd like to be).

And this is what happened:

and I think I like the whimsy and layers of it the way it is now.

The flow and the underpainting. The not-trying-to-be-realism of it.

the inclusion of childhood memories, of success, of fun; of movement and change and brightness and all that unknowing.

And the keeping of that ocean vibe.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm okay with it, for now.