The Summer Starts Here...

(& yes, accompanied by raindrops, as might be expected...)

Finally, the last morning's work of the (ever-more exhausting) academic year & thus 'hang the dj' for the next 8 weeks at least.
To celebrate, a post-lunch stroll home, the last leg of which provided a veritable feast of 'roadkill' drinks can finds upon sections (contained within the same residential avenue) within of the local double black lines.

To begin, a particularly fine specimen of the road markings themselves, so subtle as to merge almost imperceptibly with the tarmac surface upon which they lay (how Clement Greenberg might appreciate such 'flatness'!).
Considering the 'ground' as a whole, as the 'picture plane' of tradition hereabouts, one might appreciate the wonderful grimy, grungey appearance it possesses (as, indeed, does the 'roadkill' can itself), echoed in the lines, scored & scarred as they are, with the darker patch of tarmac adding another compositional incident.
Whilst having no intention to make such qualitative distinctions, there's something about the aesthetic of such a found 'painting' that aspires to the ideal of such, as imagined, somehow, that places it firmly amongst the very best & favourites of its kind.



The second find occurred but a few steps further along & homeward, indeed merely the other side of a parked car (the perpetrator of the 'roadkilling', perhaps?).
The scene here is a little cleaner, perhaps, in terms of both overall appearance & in its distinctions, but, equally delightfully, is characterized by the compositional additions of complementary horizontal yellow & perpendicular blue lines, the former being bold & definite evidence of the original yellow lines marked upon the road surface as it 'bleeds' from under the overlaying 'black', & the latter, perfectly dissecting the 'double blacks', the most recent addition to the 'ground', chalkily-, pastelly-painted markings associated with the roadworks that have left their darker-toned evidence upon the previous scene.



Lastly, & somewhat further up the street, with the double black lines becoming more distinct yet, the 'roadkill' object has been reformed into the type of shape habitually attractive & intriguing enough to be litter-picked for the purposes of being processed into drawing...



Obviously too carried away in the moments of such a wealth of 'found paintings' (which, of course, might be claimed to conflate the genres of still life & 'landscape', at least of an urban, man-made kind, all in something of a modernist idiom) & the act & art(?) of photography to realise the potential significance of such a found object. Or perhaps representation in one form is sufficient.