43- “Stick a Pin in It” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - gesso, charcoal, masking tape, pastel, acrylic paint, ink, and push pins on panel - 12”x10” - March 2021 - (available) What does it all mean? While I tend to like to think about what things mean or how they fit together, these days, all of that has been blown apart. Social media has helped do that for us: we scroll rather than digest. We are confined to digital presence more than sitting on the porch, talking to someone. This is the last one I have ready to show, for the moment. This “renewed body of work” I am calling “Deconstructing Reality.” Part of this project has been about, not so much a set of rules, but about a way of working, a way of pushing past the rules I set for myself. In this instance, I took a work that I had done in the past, and I kept going. I deconstructed it some more, added to it, took some things away. Allowed it to ripen. Much like myself, and my own sense of self. When I first thought of the title for this, “Stick a Pin in It,” I guess I was really thinking about “Stick a Fork in It,” meaning “it’s all done.” Whereas apparently “Stick a Pin in It” means “let’s come back to it later.” So interestingly enough, the true meaning actually makes more sense to my process. We can sleep on it and come back later. We can keep working at it. We are not really done here. With all the disappointments and sadness and frustrations of this time, I think we need to “Stick a Pin in It.” Let’s trust that even when everything seems to fall apart, we can come back to it. Later.
