 "The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019 No.1, state 7), oil on canvas, 66x59.5 inches {"I believe there is a golden thread which alone gives meaning to the political history of the West, from Marathon to Alamein, from Solon to Winston Churchill and after. This I chose to call the doctrine of liberty under the law." -Anthony Sampson, "The Changing Anatomy of Britain", 1982}  Drawing 02·02·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The constant back and forth is not second-guessing; It is guessing! Try this! Is that right? Yes! No! Maybe? Yeah, that's it! There is a lot right about both the drawing and the painting I show today. The drawing I call "done." The painting, "The Doctrine of Liberty", requires several more sessions. There are little things in "The Doctrine of Liberty" that bother me. Also, there are big things that bother me. Little things, such as the vertical ochre-colored strand on the left requires more tactile touches in order to better animate its accent. Big things, such as the many value and color relationships that need to be revisited, enhanced so as to bring full power to the entire image — this image is in need of total integration through contrast of values within the overall play of its dominant atmospheric color. And so it goes...
 Drawing 01·15·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Rules have been made because history has been made. I grew up with intense interest in visual arts, especially painting and drawing, I studied art history. I looked for models. I looked for information. I gathered it, assiduously and thoroughly. Here I am, playing differently than any model I have ever seen in art history, or in contemporary art. I am myself. Yet, I have not rid myself of the laws I learned from art history and from art school studies. Yesterday's drawing is amazing in its play with form, composition, mark-making, value-contrast, atmospheric and local effects; but it has a deep foundation in the stuff that came before. Is this good or bad? That is a question I continue to answer. This is the process! I have established myself as myself. Now I question the validity of my answers. I am wondering, "Is this drawing remarkable because it plays with rules I invented myself?" OR "Is this drawing just another variation on the rules I have been given by those who made art before me?" Question #2: "Does it matter?" I need to know. Thus I proceed.
 "Seriously?" (2018 No.11, state 11), oil on canvas, 49.8x62.5 inches {"All higher humor begins with ceasing to take oneself seriously." - Hermann Hesse, "Reflections", ed. Volker Michels, 1974}  Drawing 12·20·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Growth comes with confusions. Most confusions, most problems, are rectified through work. I have this worry, "Am I able to keep all my lessons learned, those things I have rectified through work, available to my present consciousness?" Yesterday's drawing has element of silliness. It was pleasant for me to go that way. Today, looking at that drawing, I muse amusingly, "Silly me!" Lesson learned: This one is silliness too far. The hand-like object was made in jest, but it removes the viewer from this drawing's formalistic wonder. This drawing is glorious in compositional play. Its merits get lost because it took the extreme risk of referencing an obvious human trait. This distracts too much; it is not as successful as it might have been. Lesson learned!
Yesterday's work on the painting, Seriously?, is proof of lesson learned. Seriously? is now enlightened by acceptance of atmospheric color. There are many way of holding a painting together; this atmospheric color thing is one great technical method toward coherence.  "2017 No.13" (state 6), oil on canvas, 51.5x59.5 inches  Drawing 10·08·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches There is much I like about the current state of the painting 2017 No.13; there is much that discomforts me. I feel more insecure about the right side then the left side. Here, in reproduction, it looks better than it does in the studio. The left is not quite in sync with the right. It is atmospheric discord, as well as image discord. Most important, I am now optimistic. This painting will succeed!
Yesterday's drawing is testing my sight, my ability to see. Is that a hole in the center of the large, complex form on the right side of the drawing? Or is it a protrusion of something light in value? I don't know. I done care. In this case my intuition responds "yes" to this form's viability; in art-making affirmative intuition must be followed, even if it leads to failure. This manner of problem solving is OK in art-making, always leading to the discovery of correctness. This method is not always good in life. In life, sometimes one cannot go back and correct a gaffe. Art is about mistakes and failures leading to knowledge, leading to better art. This is not true in human relationships. People say and do things they cannot take back.  "2017 No.11" (state 15), oil on canvas, 52x54 inches  Drawing 09·21·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am always hoping I am good enough to do it all in one fell swoop! Not yesterday! The painting 2017 No.11 is better than the day before, but the yellow creep onto the largest form in the composition requires a pullback. That will happen tomorrow. I think that will be the end of it. This painting does require a few other touches (besides removal of the excess yellow). That should be easy. The difficult work is done.
Yesterday's drawing tests a few new ideas. I still think (as I wrote in yesterday's blog post) I am exploring ideas that may instigate a new painting, which should begin shortly.  "2017 No.5" (state 2), oil on canvas, 55.5x56.5 inches Something is very right about the painting 2017 No.5. I do not think it calls for more. It sings, it is full of light, its color play (both local and atmospheric) is joyous, and the composition is balanced while simultaneously off-kilter. What could be better? At this point I do not know. Glory, glory, Hallelujah! Te drawing is a study for the painting. I cannot follow a formula. Although this drawing resembles 2017 No.5, it is different, albeit informative.  Drawing 03·05·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "2017 No.5" (state 1), oil on canvas, 55.5x56.5 inches The light and airiness of my new painting is an immediate reaction to the questions I asked during the finishing stages of the previous painting, 2017 No.4. My questions pertain to color, both local and atmospheric. I admit, one of my crutches, when in query, are the works of Henri Matisse. In Matisse's best work he handles the nuances of color, the competition between the insistence of local color versus the insistence of atmosphere, better than any painter I know. Light dominates in 2017 No.5, as it does in my favorite works by Matisse. Similar Matisse (looking broadly at his oeuvre), I do go back and forth with my concerns, ricocheting from the dominance of form to the dominance of color. In 2017 No.5 color is winning. As examples of my influence I reproduce a work by Matisse and one by the Bay School painter Elmer Bischoff. FYI: The entire Bay School, which included Richard Diebenkorn, was greatly influenced by Matisse's play between local and atmospheric color.  Drawing 03·04·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Henri Matisse, "Notre Dame in Late Afternoon", oil on canvas, 1902  Elmer Bischoff, "Figure in Landscape", oil on canvas, 1957  "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.18" (state 2), oil on canvas, 76x56 inches I am not reinventing light, but I am interpreting it. That's what happened yesterday. I have always enjoyed looking at the many paintings of haystacks by Claude Monet (below, see a reproduction of one of those paintings). So, it is not surprising that "2016 No.18" is unravelling in the way it is. The surprise is my interest in using this light filled idea to find emotional reality, of which I think my paintings need a shot. I believe I am feeling this way because of the confidence I have developed in the technical aspects of light-dark contrast, form, and composition. It feels to me that I have prepared myself for a more profound intervention into emotional transference. Thus the light! Light is becoming one more tool in my box of tools.   Claude Monet, "Haystack", oil on canvas, 1891  "2016 No.17" (state 2), oil on canvas, 46x49.25 inches Who makes the rules? Not me! Me? Actually its both! This world I am making is according to a confluence and divergence of everything known. Making sense of it is slow, but sure, a day by day activity. This makes me think of Michelangelo, who said on his deathbed, at age 89 years: “I regret...that I am dying just as I am beginning to learn the alphabet of my profession.” I am always beginning. Every time I stand in front of a white piece of paper, or a white canvas, or even a painting or drawing that is in process, I feel so youthfully naive. The more at a loss I am, the better I disarm myself through the process. Disarm is a good word for this process, i.e. if I take it to be the stripping away of weapons and ammunition. I am always protecting myself, looking to keep the fortress intact. I also want to find a way to build the fortress bigger, more substantial. Of course, I am constantly failing because that is NOT what I am doing. I am NOT building something more substantial, I am learning the alphabet that is already here. The newish painting, "2016 No.17", looks like a reaction to my previous painting, "2016 No.16". "No.17" is working with a limited palette, thus feeling atmospherically involved. This is me questioning the color scheme of "No.16", which allows competition between atmospheric and local color. I like yesterday's drawings.   |
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