 Drawing 04·04·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·04·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·04·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I insist upon an absence of dogmatism. Everything considered, everything made, everything encountered, is questioned as new, as if it never existed before. Nothing is taken as truth without inquiry; there are many possible truths. Robust debate occurs, always. I believe there is no other means to sort the valid from the invalid. This is a slow process. Being openly inquisitive, taking nothing as immediately true, takes time and mindfulness. Thus comes yesterday's drawings. There will be many more to come. Art is made from questions. Answers arrive, one by one. Given that no answer is ultimately nor solely true, there are many more questions to answer and many more answers to question.
Of the three drawings I show today, I thing the last best. This is an intuitive feeling; I will not intellectually defend it. Today more questions arise. Tomorrow I will show you the answers I generate today. And so it goes, one day at time, one answer at a time; drawing, after drawing, after drawing...
0 Comments
 Drawing 04·03·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·03·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am working hard to feel myself through my drawings, one contemplative mark by one contemplative mark. This is a grandiose effort. It requires mindfulness beyond anything I have experienced before. The forms themselves, made by marks of a pencil, are just a portion of the self-empathic problem I am making an effort to solve; the space between each mark, and the space between each form, carries enormous empathetic weight. To fully engage the meaningfulness of this journey is daunting. These drawings are the beginning of very special art; I am beginning to make art as communication of nuanced, momentary feelings, to myself, and to those who view my art. My art is becoming a true record of my living, feeling, thinking, learning, and making.
 Drawing 04·02·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My present work is the visualization of empathy. I feel much; I know my feelings have not been adequately displayed in my art. The mountain is there. It looms. I am able cross the river, get to those hills of feelings, then I will climb. This is my life's work. Every drawing I have made, every painting I have make, has fallen short of my goal. Each work informs me. Each work makes me feel the pang that results from failure. With every work I make I feel more strongly; my desire is evidence; I want to get there, to reach full success, to fully disclosure my enormous feelings and emotions. Strong awareness of failure is the symptom of understanding what truth looks like. I can see the promise land, a place where my art and my feelings are one. This is the result of my constancy; I have consistently made art. I have been making art for a very long time. I have a personal history of failure, I have a personal history of success; failure and success are my driving forces; they push me toward my goal; I can see truth in my mind's eye. I have seen truth in other people's art. I know it can be done. I am struggling to get there. I need time and production, honesty and reaction.
Yesterday's drawing is a stepping stone along my way to full visual disclosure.  Drawing 04·01·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·01·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·01·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·01·2020 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches When there is a lot going on in the studio there is not much time to mull and worry and think out loud. Here they are, four of them, to show. More coming; there ain't no sunshine when I am busy; there are electric lights, paper, canvas, pencil, oil paints — that is enough; that is all she wrote!
 Drawing 03·29·2020 No.1, graphite on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 03·29·2020 No.2, graphite on paper, 16x20 inches Insight and disease are not mutually exclusive. However, this pandemic, this disease, this Coronavirus, is helping me see more clearly. Insight is upon me. I have slowed to a pace of inevitable knowing. Peculiar it is, the greatest creativity occurs in the most stressful of times. It feels similar to a bicycle crash I once endured. I lost control of my bike; I was speeding down a tarmac road; the road was covered in a glaze of sand left over from winter salt & sanding; during a turn the front wheel slid on the sand. As I spun and churned toward the tarmac, I made decisions on how best to hit the surface of the road; a fraction of a second turned into an extended time; I was able to make a creative decision to save my life. I pushed the bike away so I could roll, rather then remain beneath the soon-to-be horizontal bike to be forced to scrape myself to the bone. I was wearing a bike helmet, which cracked, but otherwise I had nothing on but a T-Shirt and thin nylon pants. I ended bruised, with minor scrapes. I am taking scrapes in this virus outbreak. So far, my loved ones, when infected, have recovered. Me, I may, or may not, have had the Coronavirus. I experienced a period similar in symptoms to Covid-19, but no test to verify.
Yesterday was an exciting time in the studio. I had insights a-many. I believe many past works were confused in purpose. I have a simple objective; I wish to express simple truths; I wish to express being here and now. In response to this realization, my drawings are becoming basic truths; these drawings are more simple than previous ones, more direct, more felt, more readable by their viewers. This time of stressful quandary is rewarding me; I am experiencing good within the distractions a world dominated by disease.  Drawing 03·28·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am taking my own advice, actually the advice of Rumi: "Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." You can see my acceptance of this principle, and my acceptance of my limitations, in this drawing. I am here and now. That is my job.
 Drawing 03·27·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Paying attention to emotional truths is the diminution of bias. Truth telling is the work of a true detective. A true artist is a true detective. Yesterday's drawing succeeds; its process was one of truth detection. I refused to accept less than emotive truth. My job description demands more of the same. Practice is required. More to come.
 Drawing 03·26·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 03·24·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I hate bias. Being biased means no original ideas. An excellent artist must be open to original ideas. Anything creative requires openness. Successful problem solving requires receptiveness. My art-making is open to everything I have seen, the mistakes I have made, and my successes. I do not take any idea as gospel truth. I try the untried.
I finished the drawing began on 3/24/2020; I create a new one. I am working hard to weed out bias. Perhaps no artwork is fully successful; nevertheless there is truth in bits, pieces, and places. It is my job to pick up the truths, recognize those bits, work toward excellence and authenticity. I am watching a country being hurt by bias. Wrought by political morass, our nation is in a state of disease. Bad ideas matter; they slow the process of problem solving. Bias is not precluded by saying things like "I am a successful person," "I am a stable genius," "Drain the swamp!" I make art because I wish to dismiss idiocy. Spouting bias, incorrectness, is not helpful. Our Covid-19 problem will be solved. It will be solved by the many of us who are working in earnest to solve without bias; in other words, creatively. I am optimistic. We will get through this. There is force of true intelligence within us. True solutions will win. Happy days are ahead. We are slogging toward a better world, one good idea by one good idea.  Drawing 03·24·2020 (state 1), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My drawings, and my paintings, are turning, churning, transforming me and my art. The end of pretense has occurred. Take a look at the trend in my recent work. This is serious stuff, but not devoid of humor. Life goes on. Covid-19 goes on. My art goes on. These are difficult times. There is no such thing as a time devoid of worry. Art continues to be made; despite the fray my art gets made; it is a way of dealing with the fray. I think of my art as an evolving species. The fit survive; the new ones are better than those in the past. The archeology of my work clearly describes Evolution.
Yesterday's drawing is state 1; today I will examine it, alter it, become satisfied with it. This drawing will not change drastically, but it will become nuancedly better. There is another species that is working hard to disappear: Republicans. Every Republican president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has overseen a recession, This goes for Ronald Reagan, this goes for Donald Trump. Democratic Presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton among them, have pulled the U.S. back from the mistakes of their Republican predecessors. There were no recessions under Obama and Clinton; the Markets surged under these Democratic presidents, then fell during the terms of their Republicans successors; very bad recessions occurred under Bush II, and now a terrible one is occurring under Trump. Are not Republicans ripe for extinction, at least in the form they now exist? When does idiocy not alter a species?  Drawing 03·22·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 26), oil on canvas, 38.5x62.5 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"} I have written about Leo Tolstoy's "Great Man Theory." I called it Tolstoy's theory, but that is not correct. I called it Tolstoy's Great Man Theory because it is to Tolstoy's ideas that I subscribe. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" features criticism of Thomas Carlyle's Great Man Theory. According to Tolstoy, the significance of great individuals is imaginary; as a matter of fact they are only history's slaves realizing the decree of Providence. I do not believe in the Great Man Theory of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle originated the idea that History is created by individual Heroes. This is idiocy! Carlyle's Theory cannot describe the rise of Adolf Hitler; Post World War I German society called for a bombastic man, a man full of hate. Hitler was not a Great Man, but Hitler did force every culture, in every nation, to change! History, like science, like my art, takes a step backward for every two steps forward. Our society is in the midst of a step backward, but soon our society will take two steps forward. I am watching our nation's Republican leadership fade into History; they will soon be replaced by their betters. Pandemics will be better handled; Global Warming will be tackled. Our society is living through a confused time. Almost half our population believes there is this man who will fix our problems; they made him President — nothing says confusion clearer than that! For my part, I am divorcing myself from it. There is no such thing as a Great Man. There are smart men, men who see and understand the intelligence of the most balanced of us. These men advance the ideas of us who wish to run society based upon ideas known through intelligent and realistic thought. For instance, science tells us Global Warming is a problem; most people believe this; most people see the world correctly. We have a President of the United States who does not believe Global Warming is a problem. We have a President who believes the Coved-19 cure is worse than the disease; he says we should ignore the Covid-19 outbreak after Easter Sunday 2020. Science tells us otherwise. I am the product of the time in which I live. I am expressing myself by stepping forward. The body of knowledge I have been given is my stepping-off point. This knowledge is helping me express my perception of here and now. You can see this in the work I show today. BTW: The paintng, "Something Else Entirely" is in State 26, but this state took only one small stroke of paint to move to this much more satisfactory conclusion. Little things do matter! Thomas Carlyle stated that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men", reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration. In his book "On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History," Carlyle saw history as having turned on the decisions, works, ideas, and characters of “heroes". |
To read my profile go to MEHRBACH.com.
At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
April 2020
|
RSS Feed