Count them, four drawings were made yesterday; AND I returned to an old painting, which was called "Woman with Flowers." This painting is forever changed, and will now be retitled, "Woman with Little Man." Yesterday's activity was an outbreak, and it felt grand!
My obsessive drawing was instigated by an insight, an insight provoked by Dick Schellens' comment on one of drawings (as reported in yesterday's post). All forms are symbolic, that's my insight! This seems trite when written, but in effect it is important. Yesterday, as I marked paper and canvas, I knew my art was a symbolic reflection of that which I know and feel. My forms, my figures, the people I created, were accepted as mere symbols, and I manufactured them with acceptance of their symbolism. I believe drawing #4 is the best of the lot. I do not have an image of "Woman with Little Man" to show you. Check back tomorrow, as this painting is in process of a major change. Tomorrow I will post a picture of it in the state it obtains at the end of the today. Two days ago Dick Schellens told me he particularly liked my drawing dated 4∙6∙2011 #2 (posted on 04/07/2011). This helped me to an important insight, which I tried to solidify in the drawing I made yesterday. I was not totally successful in yesterday's drawing, but I awoke early this morning thinking about my new awareness. I have to give Dick a lot of credit for this new awareness. When Dick points out stuff he likes, his trusted eye makes me look again. Which is to say he clarifies something I already know, but I have not consciously registered. This drawing, "4∙6∙2011 #2," is an example of Dick confirming my knowledge, and pointing out its significance. I must have known this drawing was important before Dick's declaration, because right after I created it, 10 days ago, I posted it on "Facebook" as my "Profile Picture." This brings me to Pablo Picasso's quote: "Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth." This is an idea common among all the artist's I admire, and who influence me. All of them boldly accept that art is a lie, a fabrication which reveals truth. Picasso, Modigliani, Giacometti, and Henry Moore — all created pictures which have forms peculiar to themselves. This is the basis of my art too, it is just that I am in my youth in finding my forms. Three other artists who have influenced me in their grand creation of self-identifying forms are Arshille Gorky, Willem de Kooning (in his "Woman" paintings and drawings), and Philip Guston (in his late figurative work). I have been moving toward creating my own idiosyncratic world, peopled by forms peculiar to myself, as witness the two works shown today. I am not there yet, but I am maturing rapidly. I see the train a-comin'.
The title of today's post refers to the the man's head on the clothed figure in "Man & Man." As it currently looks, this painting is completely unsatisfactory. Yes, I changed the head, but much about this work annoys me. I am going to follow my instincts of annoyance and change this painting till it begins to tell the story I feel I need to tell. At this stage I know it is far from solved, as my discomfort with it is enormous. I have no idea where it will go. This one will be made by me jumping in and working toward truth.
The drawing from yesterday is nothing to brag about. It is just me looking at human physiognomy and practicing methods of expression. Yesterday started off usual enough. First I made a drawing, practicing my craft. Then I went to painting. It seemed to go well. Color began to enter my newest painting, "Man & Man." I worked on the background, the man on the left, and then the man on the right. What happened? Near the end of the session I painted on the clothed man's head and botched it. I hate it. Today, first thing, I will rub it out, and try again. The other insight is the complexity of this seemingly simple painting. This painting will take a several weeks to solve. Stay tuned.
I know the drawings of the last two days do not look like the painting "Man & Man," but they are definitely studies for it. These drawings contain two standing nudes, a man and a woman, while "Man and Man" is about one man, standing, clothed and unclothed (version #1 of "Man & Man" was shown in the post of 04/11/2011). The personal introspection component is lost in the male/female couples, but these drawings are about the technical problems of depicting two standing figures.
I am now ready to resume my work on "Man & Man." Everyone's waiting for the sky to open, looking for sunshine, looking for the illumination to clarify the difficult to comprehend. Leonard Cohen tells us the correct way to behave: "Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There's a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." I have given up the notion of finding the perfect way to make a picture. Art is made as being flows. Every day I want to ring the bells I have available, but they deceptively appear to change from day to day. The perfect offering will never come. Making art is searching for the cracks in one's view of existence. "That's how the light gets in." The drawing made yesterday is one bit of light shown through the cracks. I keep chiseling away at my hypotheses, trying this and trying that, and once in a wild a crack opens, the light shows through, and I know my efforts have scraped away another piece of cement which had held my comprehension in a neat package. Existence is not a neat package, but it sure is hard to give up that notion. Only through work will I make cracks open to reveal glimmers of true reality. Today I offer one more enlightenment.
It feels like being home again. If you read my blog last week you know my returning to the studio, after my recent trip to North Carolina, was disturbing. Upon return my core values were not immediately apparent. I was surprised at the amount of effort required to feel balanced. Making art never comes easy, but last week's discomfort was especially powerful. I felt out of touch with my core. Lack of practice does that. It was wonderful to be in North Carolina, seeing friends and family. The centers of one's identity are all mixed up in a soup. Exhibiting them in our sensual world manifests who we are. This is how making art and being in the company of loved ones is similar in rewards. Acting within a realm larger than ourself is intensely satisfying. This is the stuff which gives serenity to being. It is the comfort of knowing one is not alone. One loves and is loved. One speaks and is heard. One listens and understands. The depth of our conversations is a measure of the pleasure of our living.
Yesterday found me practicing an approach to art making which relies upon intuitively finding the subject and form. One of the insights I had while in North Carolina, after viewing many of my earlier works, was my consistent desire to deal with interaction between two people. I need to do no more than make paintings about two people in emotional, visual dialogues. That would be adequate for my life of work. Today's work illustrates this. The new painting, "Man & Man," is probably about the same man. He is shown twice, so it is a conversation of one with oneself. The image displayed today in "Man & Man" is, of course, the first impulse; it is simply the initial sketch on the 50 X 60 inch canvas. This painting has miles to go. It was a beautiful day, sunny and warm, in and out of the studio. It felt like the first glorious day of Spring. I was swept away by simplicity; I followed the light and the warmth. I spent enough time in the studio to complete one drawing. This drawing satisfied me in execution and outcome. After the recent hiatus, and a struggle to return to comfort in direction and attitude, I have arrived.
I have been back in the studio for about a week. It has been a week of me feeling discomfort—nothing comes easily, and I doubt the quality of my work. Before my trip to North Carolina I walked into the studio and made work with the belief the stuff I was producing reflected my expressive needs. Introspectively I doubt my feelings of comfort or discomfort reflect reality, now or before the trip. I am tuning into my inability to be objective. I am trying to see reality, but making art is a mixture of everything we our, from our needs and wants, to our emotions and intellect, to our knowledge and the desire to learn and know more. The only way to allow this conundrum to unravel, and for my question of "what is real?" to be answered, is for me to go ahead and do what I need to do without question. I will paint today. The first drawing I show in today's post is a study for the painting I will begin today. Today I show study #2 for the new 50 X 60 inch painting—see the 04/07/2011 post for study #1. The other two drawings I made yesterday are me struggling to find comfort in what I am doing. Before I leave you I wish to show one additional Henry Moore sculpture. Moore's approach to art making fascinates me, with its emphasis on invented form and energetic, yet stable, compositions. However, when depicting two or more people, one of Moore's figure's never engages another with a glance or look. Moore's entities are regally distant from one another, even when he depicts a family group. Yes, family members touch, but they do not see one another. This is not my way. To illustrate my point I reproduce two of Moore's sculptures: the first a King and Queen, the second a family group.
I am surprised how difficult it is to become comfortable once again, but maybe I was never comfortable. One's movement through life is nearly impossible to track well, so overblown are we with with the emotions of the moment. Just as elation, from perceived success, clouds reality, so does despair, from perceived failure. In the prior sentence I am careful to use the word "perceived" because perception is not a simple thing. I wish it were. It would make living and making art easier. As it is, I am beginning to accept intuition as far more intelligent than logic. I am not happy with yesterday's drawing. It took me several hours, and I felt comfortable only at the beginning. I ground through it, looking for truth. The form of the woman did not come easy (you can see that in the many adjustments and pentimenti). The little success in this drawing is me allowing my intuition to dominate. I felt my way through the woman's form without conscious thought, accepting deeper knowledge. The bewildering limitations of this drawing I attribute to the rust I allowed to form while away from art making during my recent trip. However, solving this drawing by relying on deep, intuitive knowledge, is my success. I believe practicing my acceptance of non-intellectual, and non-categoragorical, knowledge will carry me to the knowing I wish to express. This reminds me of a Henry Moore sculpture I saw in the foyer of the Nasher Museum of Art on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina. I will write about this, and show images, of Henry Moore's work, after I show you my drawing from yesterday. My earlier discussion in today's post brings me naturally to Henry Moore. Kenneth Clark, the art historian, tells a story in his autobiography about Pablo Picasso's reaction to the work of Henry Moore. Clark showed Picasso a book of reproductions of Moore's work. Clark reports his observation of Picasso's confusion and uncertainty as Picasso viewed Moore's art. Picasso seemed unable to understand how Moore created his complex forms, whose compositions were simultaneously active and balanced. Picasso was a naturally gifted draftsman, Moore was not. Moore struggled when placing forms on a flat plane. I show you two of Moore's best works. His struggle with drawing, with natural forms and anatomy, drove Moore to produce works where intuitive discovery of his internalized visual perceptions took precedence. This is what I'm talking about. This is my struggle too.
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April 2024
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