Pepper With Uneven Cut original mixed media still life painting by Polly Jones

8" acrylic and paper on gallery wrapped canvas. On Etsy here.

One reason I combine layers of collage with painting is how it's a way to hint at how complicated and full of memory that "looking" can be. For instance, many years ago when we lived in Knoxville, I had a gig as a demonstrating artist at a KMA event. I was doing a large painting of a bell pepper and an older man came up and stood there a while just watching. He finally said, "I'm so glad someone else feels that way about bell peppers!" It was kind of funny because he seemed to be embarrassed that he was moved by the beauty of a vegetable. Now when I am cutting up peppers and looking at them, I always feel a kinship with that man. So that's one thing I think about when painting peppers. Another is how I plan to use it in a recipe later if it doesn't shrivel too much. Another influence is Edward Weston's famous black and white photographs of peppers changing the way we see them. We bring a lot to our looking and that can make it messy in a lovely way.