The Politics of Transformation

Painting by D a v i d S p a n b o c k

I have made painting a daily practice for over 35 years. Almost everything else has come and gone, but painting has remained. A short time after I began my daily practice I began to see the entire endeavor as a single piece spread out over many discrete objects. In giving this inclusive work a title I chose one that I thought best described it, it was : "The Politics of Transformation" Over time I began to understand the nature of this work and realized that structure of the piece resembled the structure of a city, where many individual discrete parts such as buildings people etc exist separately but also are part of a larger entity. I then realized that the root of the word "politics" is "polis" the greek word for city. So the idea of the city was there all the time. And for the first time I really felt I had some understanding about what it was I was doing.

Ojai, California, United States