Busy: Thinking

George Johanson self-portrait at Augen Gallery (with permission).

This is a picture of a wonderful Oregon artist, 84 years old and still hard at work. He is very busy. Because this is a self-portrait, he is obviously busy painting. In fact, he is also busy doing the work of a model. But he is busy painting himself not painting!

What is George Johanson doing in this self-portrait?

He is busy looking and busy evaluating. We don't normally consider these activities (or, perhaps, non-activities) a form of busyness, but they are undoubtedly work, as any serious photographer can attest. The artist is thinking about shapes and lines and negative space and perspective and hues and values and transparency or opacity of pigments and sizes of brushes and how to apply them. Scumble? Glaze? Wet-in-wet?

I would love to ask the artist what the volcanoes represent--are they his left-brain and right-brain thought processes exploding as he quietly sits regarding his self-portrait?--but I'm too busy to find out.

Note: I took several head-on shots of the painting but chose this one both because it eliminated glare from the gallery lighting and because the diagonals lend energy to the image in keeping with its busy subject.