Are you right till your are told you are wrong? Being righteous many be noxious to some, but not to me. My art is finding a center. It is calling out with balance and symmetry. This approach brings wonder: It allows for asymmetrical play of form and value.
Less posting; more learning about Social Media — that's how it is. I mentioned this in a previous blog post. I am taking a course that teaches better use of Social Media. What I want is more interest in my art. I have been told the best way to get that interest is proper use of our current social environment. I tell you this because I have reduced my time in the studio in order to learn about effective socializing. This is ART versus SOCIAL MEDIA. Right now, art-making may be getting less time, but looking at yesterday's drawing it is not losing in its struggle for better communicate. The drawing I show today is an excellent one. My process of self-discovery, of self-acceptance, of making art that reflects my need to communicate to you is endlessly evolving. It will succeed because I listen to you and I listen to me and I know when I have made something more successfully communicative. Yesterday's drawing communicates well. I am walking in the right direction. I am becoming authentically me. I am becoming a better communicator. Social Media is a necessity. It is a major means to communicate to you. Through interaction via Social Media I am becoming more astutely aware of my failures and my successes to communicate.
The battle within me comes to this: I have a desire to push limits with bluster and bellow, AND I know following an idea is important when it sits correctly on the page. In other words, if something makes sense, go at it, unravel it, make it seen and known, stick with it till the idea becomes so apparently true that it must be followed, OR so apparently wrong-headed that it must be let go. Continuity is paramount, and should override my emotional need to be tempestuous and self-challenging. With this in mind, please look at today's reproductions of my work. I am hanging in there with the painting 2017 No.14, which continues to be enhanced and developed (this is state 18). Also, yesterday's drawing shows me hanging in there, continuing to investigate the idea that a symmetrical composition is an important requirement to keep the viewer's attention in a challengingly emotive work.
I must point out my new poke at humor in 2017 No.14. The white blobs against the blue ground give air to this abstract world. They obviously resemble clouds on a sunny day. Nice, warming, a real world reference that makes me smile. Despite a vaguely illegitimate title for this blog-post, this is an excellent drawing. Reflecting upon Anselm Kiefer's work, thinking back to Picasso's best paintings, I began this drawing with a dominantly frontal, center-balanced composition. The intention, no matter if perfectly secured, was to approach the making of this drawing with centeredness. This allowed me to play forcefully with forms and create a strongly realized ground; thus keeping the residue of center-balance while freely inventing emotive forms. Below this post two substantially centered paintings are reproduced, one by Kiefer, and one by Picasso. Both also create three-dimensional depth, which I now believe requires a sturdy and centered composition to pull off well. One of my most remarkable self-discoveries is an emotive image does not require realistic light. There is no need for faithful reference because it is the power of the image and the power of the forms that strike the viewer as real. Reality, accurate to the world we walk in, is unnecessary. The reality of the image is all that is in front of the viewer and therefore it is accepted as reality. Nobody does this better than Anselm Kiefer. His near-abstract images glow with light. They are lightly colored, mostly grey and white, yet their realities are emotionally potent. I learn as I make. Nothing stays the same. Nothing is fully correct. Mistakes happen. It is all good. Thus comes this spatial play of a drawing, which uses white blankness for a three-dimensional frolic. Contrast is in self-discovery mode as the dark foot-like protrusion on the left uses left-handed darkness to propel itself forward in front of an eight-tentacled octopus-like ground cover. I like it!
When I was a younger man a doctor said to me, the nervous young man, "Things happen. There is always going to be something to be nervous about." This wisdom, from Dr. Pepperkorn, continues to echo in my head. I regret my distractions. I wish for more time in order to process more. I want to solve all my problems. I dwell upon things good and bad. It is the bad that feeds my constant discomfort. I do not regret being a problem solver for things solvable. Many bad things cannot be made different. I do not like missing pieces. I want everything to be fully understood, to be fully correctable. I want the puzzle to be whole.
Yesterday I was able to make one drawing. Stuff happened before and after. Mistakes were made. Time got sliced and diced. I tried to solve my mistakes. I regret the mistakes. Now they are in the past. I cannot make them right. All I have to show is one drawing made between the mistakes and the lost time. To be honest, some of the lost time was spent in me problem-solving good things. Thus there is something here to show for my time disappeared. It is the drawing I show you now. It is a good drawing. It is good because its sits well on the eye, it speaks truth and asks interesting questions. This drawing informs me. Such is a definition of time well used, i.e. time spent on creating information worth knowing is not time lost. Do you see it? There is a quick fix in the painting 2017 No.14. The speckled blue and white rectangular area has been extended, more of it added to the right. I declare this composition solved. Does this mean the painting is finished? No; it will take a few sessions to shore up its details and nuance, e.g. the bottom of the painting was slammed in, thus it varies in value and color. This confusion is seen particularly in the manganese violet portion. I must re-work to insure I am confident the best of all possible solutions is found. At least the best possible solution I am capable of finding at this moment in my knowledge and understanding.
Yesterday's drawing tried something new. I believe it works. The central form casts a shadow, but it is an incorrect shadow, as least as to the reality that such a form would cast. I am talking about the arms the central object has, on its left and right. Those arms create no shadows on the diagonal plank on its left. Instead the shadow resembles an ace of spades symbol. This maneuver, present but false, gives a strong center to the composition. The strength is there because it allows a dark valued "V" to take over the center of the composition. A "V" is like a triangle. Triangles are always strong. We know this to be true in two-dimenional compositions, as well as supports that strengthen bridges and buildings. There is physics in visual compositions too! After sixteen efforts, the painting 2017 No.14 is on the edge of being finished. It is in these moments, just prior to completion, that my excitement runs highest. I having been chasing this game across the savanna; I have caught up. There it is! With skill the kill can be had. It is time to be careful and bold. It is time to pay attention to nuance and detail.
The drawing shown was made on January 30, 2018. It is claustrophobically clogged with rock-like bolder-like forms. Relief from this clog of forms occurs at the top of composition. It is masterful. I am beginning to accept my mastery as authentic. |
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March 2024
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