   I do like No.2 drawing from yesterday. However, the vast difference of these drawings, from one to the next, spells trouble within. I am in turmoil. This is a result by my art-making concentration being diluted by a deeper plunge into social media (see sidebar for links to Instagram and Facebook). That has abated. I am back, but feeling not fully aware of who I am. Frightening it is that such a limited distraction from my path can so impinge upon my quest. Well, maybe. Actually, drawing No.2 looks authentic to me. It is a small victory amongst yesterday's confusion. Perhaps my feeling confused is more potent than my actual confusion.
 "2016 No.19" (state 4), oil on canvas, 64.5x48 inches I hesitated to write anything today. Anxiety is here, but so is my confidence in the quality of this work, thus my feeling nonchalant as well. Working never rids me of anxiety. You can see this in the drawings. Each asks a different question. Confusion does not occur in the making, but it appears in comparison, one work to the next. Not so in my painting: I am obviously taking on atmospheric color. This came to the forefront in my previous painting, "2016 No.18".     "2016 No.19" (state 3), oil on canvas, 64.5x48 inches After a few days of distraction by social media (instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn), yesterday was a big relief: I was in the studio, humming along with my own problems. My problems are endless, created (as they are) by my intuition. There is no end! All I see is a vast landscape of possibilities. How can I get enough time to do it all, try is all? When I get the chance, as I did yesterday, I take one tiny step to unravelling the mystery. From self-observation: I am now painting without the burden of evident intellectual processing. I am now following a deeper sense of correct and authentic. This does not make problems get solved more quickly, but it does drive my work. Look what happened in yesterday's drawings! They are concise, spatially concrete. In the making I sought this, but also continually asked myself, "Is this the direction I want to go?" Asking, then taking the time to answer, is the reason making-art is a hero's journey à la Joesph Campbell (below, see quote from Campbell's 1949 book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces)    "Wherever the hero may wander, whatever he may do, he is ever in the presence of his own essence — for he has the perfected eye to see. There is no separateness."  "2016 No.19" (state 2), oil on canvas, 64.5x48 inches I am feeling a bit sad and confused. This happens when I get swept away from my daily art-making. Perhaps for good reasons. I have been increasing my social media presence. This takes time. There is a learning curve. Believe it or not, before yesterday I did not have a smart phone or Android OS driven tablet. Without those I could not post on Instagram. But now I can. Check out my new Instagram page! There is so much to do. I am not happy with my latest work. It needs to be refreshed and emotionally simplified. The drawings are substantial, yes? Even very good. The distance between these drawings and the newest painting is too large. Going from one to the next appears confusing. No rigid ground to stand upon. This hurts me. Confusion drives me back to the studio. With more social media presence more people are watching my work. This is getting serious. Not your fault. I am trying to make my give and take work for me and for you. It drives me daisy.     Curiouser and Curiouser... appeared it did, a bird and a couple of women. Surprise! The rationality is me coming out of distraction caused by efforts to increase my social media presence. That ain't done yet (I will keep you informed). What I do know is this: I am on the trail. Often I have written about Joseph Campbell, who wrote the hero's journey has a path, but an unknown path ("if you see a path laid out in front of you, it is not your path"). I do not know my path, but it is a strong one, pulling me forward with funnel-like energy. Yesterday's work is good. My second drawing is more on my path than the first. The first is a fallback to ideas well-known. Beginning a new painting was the right thing to do.  "2016 No.19" (state 1), oil on canvas, 64.5x48 inches  Drawing 11·19·2016, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday was a day of distraction. I never really got rolling in the studio. I am in the midst of expanding my social media presence, which is not as straight forward as I had thought. For one thing, I did not know Instagram is a totally portable-device driven platform, for smartphones and tablets. I was not prepared, but I will be. Me on Instagram is coming! Actually I am on Instagram, but nothing is there because I don't have a device to put it there. This will change by the end of this week. I will tell you when you will be able to view me on Instagram.
For now I am exhilarated with my progress. Yesterday produced an exciting drawing, despite the distraction caused by my efforts to contemporize my social interaction. I invented a new approach. The drawing shown here has a couple of flat-ish complex forms in the background and a snake-like, U-shape form in the foreground. It animates both laterally, and also into and out of the artifice that is the third-dimension. This energetic visual movement is important to me. I enjoy the eye being given the thrill of a rollercoaster ride. BTW: My Facebook page is up and running!   Always! I am always searching for relevance — myself for myself and myself for my viewers. Today I will take more steps to integrate with relevant social media. For now, view these drawings. They are becoming more tightly composed as they become more complicated in their number and kinds of forms. I am watching carefully, as I am weary of complication. I want to be direct and honest. I want my work to have initial impact as well as a quality that demands sustained involvement.
  Times and me are a-changin'. My art is becoming focused, more alert. I know better who I am. Rather than contraction, this is expansion. The openings are immense. The possibilities great. Watch me now. To allow me to interact more fully I am in the midst of opening new social media accounts. Today one opened at Facebook which is dedicated to my paintings and drawings. I will inform you when I add more ways of following me via social media sites.
   Impossible to know it all, but I want to know it all. This is my passion. I am a problem solver. I am a problem. I do not understand everything I want to understand. More confusing than that: I don't know what I do not know. I just know there is a chasm in front of me and it is very dark and lonely down there. I want to light the darkness. I need to light the darkness. Yesterday I visually yelled at this chasm with three drawings. The addictive part of art-making is its give-back. With every completed work I feel I have lit the darkness a bit more; I understand more than before.
Today I will begin a new painting.   Today I am in New York City. I am looking for better ways and means to connect. I want a larger dialogue, more personal and direct. This Blog gets plenty of attention, but I have often complained within its posts that here are reproductions, not the real things. Words are similar. Words cannot adequately express the purely visual.
During the last couple of days I have viewed a lot of art, from Carol Bove's sculpture at David Zwimmer's gallery in Chelsea, to art in the Whitney Museum and MOMA. There is nothing like the real thing. As example, reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night" never made sense to me. At times, while viewing a reproduction, I thought, "What's the big deal?" But in person, its depth, its personality, is incredibly rich and profound. Such is my art. Reproductions here pale compared to the actual work. Thus I am in New York City, looking to find a way for people to see, and to react, to my art in person. |
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At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
February 2020
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