Linear Abstraction
Tom Ferguson

1975 - 1977
 

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God's Placement & Size
Blue
Rightness
Tuisku
Foci
Bob Weil Jazz

Canston Panstover
Chordal Progression
Ottoman
Lev Mills
Slap Dash
 

Joe Ruesing in Hawaii
Sometimes when i'm Asked, Why?
TF
3 Lines Each again

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 The idea of leaving areas of canvas unpainted to function as line intriqued me for awhile. The first
one began in the middle somewhere & worked its way out to the edges, not knowing ahead of time what was going to happen (Blue). In some I
worked from drawings, just executing the pre-
existing pattern but adapting it to the particular canvas.
These paintings seemed to me very
meditative, and elegant but also somewhat
tedious to do, stretching my attention span. So
I would alternate them with the collaborative
(next category), paintings that generally were very fast & loosely painted, more fun, more my temperament. In fact tempo was part of my interest at this time... painting at different speeds.

1975 and half of 1976 were at MSU. Then I spent 6 months at a farmhouse not far from Traverse City, painting in an old sauna and being rural. I became more and more infatuated with NYC, making trips there as frequently as I could. The art scene was incredible. I was getting alot of affirmation out of those trips and that scene. Peter Plagens, Jack Burnham and Joel shapiro lectured and
Ellen Phalen, was a very interesting visiting artist.
Jim Adley in the dept. was making monumental paintings & going unrecognized but his sensibility certainly influenced me. I lived in a coop, hung
out for a time with a group of psychotherapist
explorers, encountered real jazz, slipped into
music dept. piano rooms  nearly daily for an
improv meditation. The campus was idylic, a river flowing through, the trees identified with tags...
a very pleasant two years. The 6 months in the country was fine also. There I plotted my next
move which came down to: move to Atlanta, make $4,000, move to NYC. Atlanta because some
friends felt they had a very good chance of
getting a contract to restore the Cyclorama.
If they got it they promised to hire me. The
south was warm, right? That had its allure. With
$500 I headed south. Grabbed a job assisting
in the delivery of newspapers, which allowed me
to keep up with the Cyclorama developments. I
also fell into teaching at Spelman College for a
semester, filling in for an extra drawing class.
 

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