Box Painting: Pear Tajitu

I've been painting objects in boxes for a bunch of years. And I've enjoyed the box as a visual constraint within which I've had fun solving a compositional puzzle. The organic shapes I find for my subjects have been the perfect puzzle pieces because of their elegant and figurative lines. I'd use anything as my model as long as it served my need for finding a pleasing solution. It's a game I invented for myself called playing with still-life. This year I've changed the rules. This year I've simplified the proceedings. Or have I?

This year I set out to discover the beautiful possibilities that exist within the regular quadrilateral known as the square. It's not my first foray into being a square painter. Actually I hope that by embracing the square I'll become less of a square painter and ultimately find new freedom within my constraint.  It will still take awhile to transcend the obvious before I begin to make the unknown known. That's why I've committed myself to creating ten 12" X 12" paintings per month. By the end of the year I will have made 120. It's not the only art I'll be making but I find it necessary to square off with the square this year. I fully expect to further my relationship with the unexpected. And who knows what else. And maybe I'll have a better understanding of what Lao Tzu meant by "the great square has no corners."