PASTICHE Woven Placemats

For daily use, quick and easy, placemats are the best way to set a table and pull the family dinner together! It's so many of these little things that make a house a home, just so easy. These placemats are vibrantly printed in a specially treated fade-resistant technique. 14 x 18 IN, poly or cotton twill fabric with hemmed edges, the placemats are easy to clean. Machine wash on a gentle cycle, cold water and mild detergent, air dry.

ABOUT THE PAINTING:

PASTICHE: Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 10 IN, 2024.

Pastiche means an incongruous combination of materials, forms, motifs, etc. usually taken from different sources. The composition of this painting fits this definition, snugly. But, with the way the elements come together, the theme feels pretty cohesive. Don’t you think?

This is my first finished piece of 2024 but its journey into being took over six months. It was a labor of love, frustration, a lot of experimentation and dumb luck. In short, it reflects my life over this timeline. I have no idea how many iterations it took to finally come to its conclusion, just as I can’t begin to summarize where all I had to internally go to get where I’m at now. But, that’s life: the road maps that end up going in circles only to finish in uncharted paths, the grand designs that absorb all your attention yet you have to overcome obstacles to see them clearly, the patterns you make for yourself, the patterns you brake for yourself, feeling you’ve got the world on a string only to discover you’re being pulled by a rope.

All these moments you carry with you, some as life lessons, some as experiences and some just traveling along. If you could somehow carbon copy a few of your selves in a couple of these moments, as lessons are being learned and experiences had, would these selves recognize their own tempered reflections? Maybe we’re all just a colorful pastiche in our own way. So, here’s a quilt-like composition to remind us: We need to be a little kinder to the parts that made us, us.