Deborah Semel Demirtaş

What a misleading title.
But then again, I think these photos are misleading, too.

When I look at them, it makes me want to make BIG paintings.
Which is kind of interesting, because I NEVER want to make big paintings.

But I could see making these big. At least as big as a couch painting.
A COUCH PAINTING!

How big do you think these are, anyway? Come on, take a guess…

Well, at the moment, they’re big enough – or small enough – to fit in a daypack.
Which is pretty convenient when you’re out for a walk in the woods, or a stroll by the sea.

Thanks to recent technological advancements, I am seriously thinking about making these big. At least bigger than a backpack. After that I’ll just need someplace to put them.

Any takers?

But seriously, folks…

Whenever I’m asked about who has influenced me, I always think of my undergraduate printmaking professor at Washington University, Peter Marcus, and my favorite quote from him: “Make it big, do it in color, and have 100 by Friday.”

Well, I might not have had 100 by Friday, but I certainly liked doing them big and in color. We were lucky to have a very large press (Peter liked doing large prints himself), and so I was doing prints that were at just about a meter tall – just as large as the press could handle.

Back then it was mostly technology that dictated the size of my work. Nowadays it’s storage space.

Confession: While it may have been storage space that got me started doing small works, it’s the idea behind them that’s kept me going. (My friend Hüsnü used to tell people I was a conceptual painter, after all… )

I like the idea that people have to stop in front of my drawings and get up close to them to see what’s going on in them.

Not that they always do.

In fact, they mostly don’t.

But I’m stubborn, and I will continue to try to get people to pause.

And pay attention.

Buddhist mindfulness, and all that.