It now appears that my great accomplishment in the past couple of years is learning to utilize all my drawing skills as I paint. This painting, shown today, is the first one where I feel comfortable in the same manner as when I draw. It feels so right, so good! This comfort in my active approach to painting is very important to the amount of painting I shall do. I admit, this difficulty, my discomfort while painting, has held me back, caused me to go slowly. As I made drawing after drawing, I wondered why I was not painting as much as I was drawing. Well, the answer is... "I did not comprehend the two forms of art-making as the same activity." As last I do. I ordered canvas, and stretchers, for twelve paintings, each 60 X 52 Inches. "Intimidation" (shown today) is 60 X 50 inches.
It takes force to tug one off the straight line of momentum. In physics, in order to take the curve, one must apply centripetal force. For most of my life I have believed to make an authentic statement one must push up against the edges of one's knowledge in order to hear a screeching and grating sound, like that heard as a subway train is forced by its rails to turn. Within that horrid sound one can perceive truth, which one is incapable of hearing, and thus finding, if a straight, unrestricted momentum line is taken. I now believe that is true when one is young, and knows little. I believe it is not true for me now. The kind of discipline required of me now is different than that required of me when I was young. Then, in order to find truth, discipline was required to push me off the straight and easy line. Now, discipline is required for me to hold true to my momentum, to my true self. Yesterday's work is this. It looks to me, feels to me, like nothing anyone else in this world is doing. I fear it is too simple and too restricted. Yet I know, in its simplicity and directness, it is me.
I have nothing to write. My images, the questions they ask, the answers they seek, are consuming me.
Today is Friday. Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I took pause. I reacted to events outside of art-making. They disturbed me. I contemplated a change in my own life. I changed things. I rested and found renewal. Reinvigorated, on Thursday (yesterday) I was back in the studio. This morning (Friday) I show yesterday's work.
The difficulty I face in the studio is my acceptance of my own interests, abilities, and limits. This should not be difficult, but acceptance is complicated, tricky, awkward, and demanding. At the bottom of today's post I show one of the many reasons I am confused by own impulses. A large reproduction of Edouard Manet's "Boy Blowing Bubbles" sits at the top of my stairs. I look at it several times a day. Every time I walk up the stairs, there it is, facing me, as I turn left to go into my bedroom. I find it magnificent. This inspires and confuses me. I want to paint like that (which is confusing), and I want to evoke the profundity of emotions this painting exudes in its image and in its abstract, formal qualities (which is inspirational). The great difficulty I face in art-making is me throwing off the desire to be one with the great art of the past. This makes it difficult to accept myself. I ask, are my own qualities important enough to celebrate, and consequently, embrace? The qualities of Manet's "Boy Blowing Bubbles" are easy to embrace. I have fear that my own qualities are sparse and limited, so falling back on Manet soothes me, but confuses me. I need to throw off the confusion which invades me from the outside, such as Manet. I must strip down, and accept, my own nature. Yesterday was a Monday. Mondays are my days to think about earthly stuff, like finances and world trends. I don't like it, but it is reality. I live here. I must be streetwise. I don't pretend to understand it, so I look for trends. Emotionally it mixes me up. I am much better in the studio. Trying to comprehend the end result of the myriad of decisions by the multitude of people who have a finger in the direction of worldly trends is frustrating, but not impossible—it is like betting on the Mega-Millions lottery. Unlike the lottery, I continue to believe I have a better than 50% chance of determining a trend. It is this belief which injures me, because I keep trying. Yes, it less than 50% of the time that I am sadly wrong, but there is still a lot of frustration. I wonder how people can live their lives doing the assessment game, as they make decisions based upon gigantic amounts of confusing and antithetical data, such as stock market analysts. Their percentage of being wrong is about the same are mine, yet they make a good living out of their game of few winning decisions. Being an artist is so different.
My newest painting is proceeding slowly, as I move it forward in acceptance of the importance of fully committed, sympathetic manipulation. The role of a balanced studio life in now known to me, one of research, using the tools I have developed. The tools are restricted to painting and drawing, with drawing leading the way. Drawing more quickly nudges at my questions. It does feel as if this order of things is changing. Painting is becoming more available as a research tool, rather than one which follows the gains made by drawing.
I have renamed the painting shown today, now entitled "Intimidation." My work is always about subtle human interaction, so why not name paintings by an emotion exhibited by the characters' delicate visual cues? Yes, this is one more question not fully answered. A painting is always more complex than a title may indicate. In this case manipulation may be a bad thing. I should be careful about manipulating the viewer with word clues, since a painting should evoke the richness of each viewer's experience. My giving titles obviously requires more thought. For now I will stick with the title "Intimation," which feels a bit intimidating. The more I partake in this activity, of making art, the more I accept the zero difference between what I must do and what I am able to do.
Yesterday was not how I expected. Funny it is, that I, the one working hard to accept, and manage, the twists and unexpected turns involved in art-making, finds it very disturbing when real life throws a curve into the day's plans. That happened yesterday. I was going along, following my vision for the day, when wham, my day changed. Before the forced modification I had made two drawings (in opposite order from their display here), and I was preparing to paint on the canvas "Man with Women." The transmogrification was nothing life threatening. It got resolved in a good way, but I was surprised at my lament over the loss of time in front of the canvas.
Today I will have little time in the studio. It is one of those days with multiple appointments. Perhaps this is the reason I was shocked by yesterday's change; I saw today's limitations coming. I may get one drawing done today, but my anxious need to work on "Man with Women" must wait until tomorrow. I have been an active distance runner since I was very young. Lately I have been off and on because of achilles tendon problems. I have been seeing a physical therapist. I need to admit I cannot run the way I used to run, with large loping strides. It seems my tendons cannot take the stress of that type of stride, so I need to change. The physical therapist tells me to change my pace, my goal is 180 steps per minute. Yesterday I felt I was doing a lot of steps per minute, but I maxed out at 90, one-half of my goal. So, I am in the middle of a transition, I am changing my pace. This is not unlike what is happening in my art-making as well. The painting, "Man with Women," is in process, and the process is different from any approach I have brought to canvas before. The process I use while painting is becoming the process I use while drawing. It is becoming obvious, for me the process means there is no planning ahead, there is complete surrender to that which is present in me and before me. Why have I waited so long to act this way? Perhaps because I did not know an appropriate way to act. Everyone works differently. It seems all this drawing I have done is character preparation, me obtaining the integrity and fortitude required to follow my soul and id.
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April 2024
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