When You Rip Up Old Carpet, Sometimes You Find Art Treasures.

There was a consensus among the artists in Studio 121 that the nasty, 60’s era, pink carpet had to go. It was a real eyesore. Not to mention that it reflected pink light into our paintings and photographs.

So out came the carpet! I was amazed at how much better the floor looked  – even with the raw concrete and all of the glue and exposed gunk. Anything is better than that awful carpet!

As I scrutinized where the carpet once resided, I began to see wonderful patterns  and designs in the exposed floor. There was almost a sort of historical, architectural documentation of the building’s past. I saw floor designs of past owners and tenants and paint colors no longer in style. There were even a few fossilized fragments of shag carpeting.

And now there are all of these wonderful little abstract paintings in the floor.

Since we were planning to paint the gallery floor black, I thought it might be a good idea to preserve my abstract designs. Earlier, I mentioned to my studio mates about leaving little exposed paintings in the floor which would be framed by the black paint. No one liked my idea…

I got out my camera and searched for compositions. I shot 16 but could have shot double or triple that. I did minimal editing. I boosted saturation in some and sharpened others. It is always surprising to me – the unexpected sources of visual imagery.

Now the floor is black. It looks great and serves our artwork well. One day it will be just another layer of history – art history, that is.

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Read my descriptions and if you think of something else to describe them, leave me a comment.