Totem #1

M. Bogen and L. Laur, Totem, 2021

As a project while in our place in South Beach, my wife and I created this totem. A rug we ordered came wrapped around an 8-foot-long heavy cardboard dowel. Once the rug was down, I said let's paint that with stripes. I had been thinking about doing something like this for a while, but using 4 by 4's. Anyway, we simply got some Benjamin Moore house paint and did it. It's a long process since it has to be done in layers. But that's part of the fun. And sometimes you put down some stripes that don't work and you have to paint over them. In abstract painting, and especially in minimalist or color field painting, the colors constitute the core content, unlike figurative painting, which tells a story with human form, nature, and man-made structures and objects. For this abstracted totem, each color takes the place of the mythological representations that traditionally would be stacked. Each color is a character, and presents spiritual reality that way. They are then placed in conversation, using syncopated placement. The composition process could go on for a very long time, but at some point you just say that it's done.