Carl Mehrbach's Art Blog - Making Art

Carl Mehrbach's Art Blog

Roundabout in a Straightforward Way

7/22/2019

"Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 6), oil on canvas, 65x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)}

The painting "Doublethink" is living up to its name. Its process is me thinking twice. It is straightforward problem solving (though an outsider may believe it being solved in a roundabout way). I am pushing up against current knowledge; In order to solve this I must make new knowledge. This is exhilaration! It's a wonderful life!

Lost & Found

7/21/2019

Drawing 07·20·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Mysterious are the travels that reveal. Always new, always old; both! I drag ideas from the past, I disclose ideas in the present. Yesterday's drawing summarizes, questions, solidifies, and declares. It is a restrained revelation. I do not know its entire meaning. This is me in the act of self-discovery. I am making my oeuvre. This drawing feels important, like reading a poem that makes total sense because it elegantly discloses archetypal ideas. This is visually prototypical, peculiar to me.

Into High Gear

7/19/2019

Drawing 07·18·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

"Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 01), oil on canvas, 36x61.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"}

Yesterday felt almost normal. I was in the studio; I made art! I had more ideas than I could make real. Thus came a new painting, "Sentence". "Sentence" is named after the splendid poem by Tadeusz Dąbrowski, published in this week's The New Yorker magazine (July 22, 2019 Issue).

Yesterday's drawing was new and different and excellent too!

Sentence
By Tadeusz Dąbrowski

It’s as if you’d woken in a locked cell and found
in your pocket a slip of paper, and on it a single sentence
in a language you don’t know.

And you’d be sure this sentence was the key to your
life. Also to this cell.

And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence,
until finally you’d understand it. But after a while
you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant
something else entirely. And so you’d have two sentences.

Then three, and four, and ten, until you’d created a new language.

And in that language you’d write the novel of your life.
And once you’d reached old age you’d notice the door of the cell
was open. You’d go out into the world. You’d walk the length and breadth of it,

until in the shade of a massive tree you’d yearn
for that one single sentence in a language you don’t know.

(Translated, from the Polish, by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.)

Always Troubled

7/14/2019

"Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 5), oil on canvas, 58x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)}

Drawing 07·14·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

My work does not come easy; never feels immediately right and good. I'm always troubled; always wondering about the means to better success. Best is my being there, doing this, living the questioned life.

Challenge: Simplicity & Complexity

7/10/2019

Drawing 07·09·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

I failed yesterday if simplicity be my goal. It is not! I want the intellectual and emotional satisfaction of complex images and the direct and immediate engagement of simplicity. Ellsworth Kelly achieved great visual impact using simple images. Kelly's work satisfies emotionally and intellectually. His is a great achievement. As much as I envy Kelly's direct route to completely fulfilling art, I am not Ellsworth Kelly; I am myself. My path continues to be discovered, step by currently unknown next step. Yesterday's drawing was such a step. It taught me; I reflect upon it. I want the negative space in my art to be as effective as Ellsworth Kelly was able to achieve in his art.

Ellsworth Kelly, "Untitled", oil on canvas, 1958

A Definitive & Archetypal Answer?

7/9/2019

Drawing 07·07·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Purification is occurring, but is it right and good? There must be a middle ground that makes sense. I do like intellectual answers brought upon the viewer by asking a complexity of questions. I enjoy darting around an image, looking for sense in nonsense. Open negative space is exhilarating when handled well, when breathtakingly emotional in design. Complexity within the darkness that is shadow and form can also be emotionally breathtaking. Yesterday's drawing is a huge question. I do not pretend it is anywhere near a definitive, archetypal answer.

Loneliness of the Long Distance Artist

7/7/2019

Drawing 07·06·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Being an artist, a composer of visual compositions, brings social engagement and loneness of composing. Important is the balance of my social interaction and my private activity as visual creator. Showing my work is exhilarating, very social. Exhibiting often overwhelms me, definitely distracts me from creating. There is a great difference between composer and performer. I am more the composer; I enjoy the quietude of problem solving in the studio more than the sociableness of exhibitions. Exhibitions allow friends to see me and my work together; exhibitions bring critiques from strangers along with viewers who look silently. Through my observing my exhibitions instruct me on the success and failure of every work I exhibit; Exhibitions are about success and failure of viewer engagement.

Yesterday I had a chance to compose, to create, to draw. This happened after hours of re-framing drawings that came back from my Bromfield Gallery exhibition. I noticed the linen tape I used to secure them to the mounting board had annoyingly wrinkled the paper. The linen tape I used required water to invigorate the glue. I removed the water based tape, ironed the drawings flat, then applied linen tape made with dry adhesive. The annoying wrinkles are gone. Yesterday I did this to four drawings. Today I will do it to four more. Why? Because tomorrow these drawings are going up in exhibition at Converse Free Library (Lyme, NH). I continue to juggle my time between composing and exhibition.

Today Last Day at Bromfield

6/30/2019

Drawing 06·29·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Funny it is, I find this, the last day of my solo exhibition at Bromfield Gallery (Boston), a Good Thing! I just want to get back to my daily routine of making art. I am almost there. Next week my last solo show of this summer begins at Lyme New Hampshire's Converse Free Library (opens July 8). The library will exhibit mostly drawings, and a couple paintings. The Summer Juried Exhibition at AVA Gallery (Lebanon, NH) will exhibit my painting "How's It Gonna End" and a drawing (opens July 12).

Yesterday's drawing is massively worked. It took three days! This complicated manner of working on drawings is a new thing for me. Intuition is driving my steps. My path is revealing itself, surprise by surprise.

The Love of Life

6/27/2019

Drawing 06·26·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

"Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 4), oil on canvas, 58x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)}

I like this drawing very much. But the painting, Doublethink, is me in doublethink. It is full questions, most of them unanswered. I love the time I have to doublethink, triple-think, think-a-myriad. Life is good.

Entrance must have immediacy. My drawings are beginning to understand this. Today's drawing does this well.

Doublethink disturbs because that red form separates itself. It is looking for coherency. This may come through atmospheric effects or through formal effects. I am unsure. Not being sure is exciting. It means testing and questioning and finding answers not known before. Life is good.

Worry Not Because Now

6/24/2019

"Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 3), oil on canvas, 58x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)}

The biggest pain of living is lapsing into the pain that is time-driven. Acknowledging time makes one want to hurry. Time has an arrow that pokes holes in the present. Holes are absences. Nonexistence is the consequence. Here I am. I have returned to painting Doublethink. Doublethink is appropriately titled because my return brings the baggage of pent-up wanting. Doublethink is in a good place. It is re-educating me. I stepped into it, which is the most difficult part of the journey. It feels like a first step, but it is actually the third step.