Brown Entropy
By Billy Gray
Billy carried the 30”x42” canvas up the narrow switchback metal stairs from the landing outside our kitchen to the rooftop of our flat in India. It was Christmas time on the Deccan Plateau. The morning air was still cool despite the increasing morning sun. Billy set the canvas down on the tiled roof floor and learned it against the white stucco wall that enclosed the roof top. He placed the ever popular white plastic chair in front of the canvas and proceeded to collect his paints, water, and brushes.
I watched as he dipped a large brush with cobalt blue and with the articulation of a calligrapher, painted horseshoes. 50 to be exact. He didn't count them. He painted them until there were no more. There was no conscious effort. The horseshoes simply emerged like birds in flight across the evening sky as they headed homeword.
As the sun became too intense to remain on the roof, the canvas with its 50 horseshoes was brought downstairs into our flat. Billy sat cross legged on the floor fashioning three large spinning disks, each overlapping and connecting the parts to the whole. All the while the vibrant horseshoes remained in the foreground as though they were an afterthought.
He added five more disks of various sizes. Each seemed to speak with the others. I watched as he painted one disk, then another, interacting with one another with movement and transparency, stunned by this visual magic. In between the disks, brown triangular bubbles integrated and surrounded the other elements.
Most entropies on earth, when turned into refuse, become brown. Similar to leaves, it breaks down from green to gold, to brown, soon to be fertilizer for the soil. Just as entropy changes the meaning in context, so do the components of painting change meaning the more one gazes upon it. Thus “Brown Entropy” is a measure of efficiency much like a code or language in transmitting messages.
The messages in this painting speak of a general trend of the universe towards death and disorder. However, this painting salvages the life and order from the death and disorder. The initials for “Brown Entropy”, BE, say it all!
