Pedimento

Out, out, damned spot!  Cedar must go.

My friend Barb calls her blog Pentimento, an Italian term meaning the painter repented, painted over, and left traces of the original design.  Such is the history of the front pediment of the Emma House.

The center triangle was originally gray--we think--to go with a mustard exterior.  For years it was a solid white--obviously a relief from the previous colors.  With this incarnation I can't get it right, either...the interior triangle has now been painted light cream, cedar, and finally darker cream, the field color of the house.

I've sat on the church steps and pondered the colors, and how each balances with those surrounding it.  I've mused on the play of tones as I walked to the post office, the bank, and the library.  (All just around the corner in Clinton.)  I've backed into the street during mid-day traffic (not that dangerous) and decided if the pediment center was cedar then the surrounding windows would need to be painted to balance.  Not what I want, at least not at this point.

I think this final color--the khaiki-based cream of the body of the house--is the keeper, but tracks and traces of the process remain around the edges, in the farthest corners where my brush wouldn't reach, and in little scars and pock-marks that cover the surface and challenge my will.  This house will not surrender its history.  And the floor of the pediment--where we all signed our names last Friday-- looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.