 Drawing 04·25·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·25·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Am I using the word, Wonky, correctly? The dictionary's second definition is, "having or characterized by an enthusiastic or excessive interest in the specialized details of a particular subject or field." Well then, yes, I am! I am producing head-on, fully-emotional, fully-intellectual, fully-classical, and absolutely viewer-engagement-oriented compositions. There is no fooling around in these drawings! These are wonky at their best, one after another, all wonk! These are detail oriented compositions. They engage using flat, in-the-viewer's-face, emotionally-instructed forms. Their classicism is their left to rightness, their up and downess. These drawings create the artifice of three-dimensional space, but their 3D-ness is second fiddle to their compositions' 2D formal classicism. Pablo Picasso understood this; Picasso understood classical compositional power better than anyone. The most complex of Picasso's images hit the viewer with the flattest of compositional insistence. See below: Take a look at one of Picasso's most complex paintings. Isn't is easy to read? This painting by Picasso is enticingly, head-on, flat? Enjoy! It is time for me to stop fighting the obvious! Picasso gave in; I also have decided to give in to the obvious. To drive my point home I show one more painting by Pablo Picasso; this one from Picasso' so-called NeoClassical Period, when the artifice of 3D space was moderated by their 2D Classical Compositions! (Below, see "Pipes of Pan", one of my favorite paintings by Picasso!)  Pablo Picasso, "The Kiss", oil on canvas, 130.5x97.7 cm, 1925  Pablo Picasso, "Pipes of Pan", oil on canvas, 205x174.5 cm, 1923  Drawing 06·21·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Something magical is happening. While in process, as I work, my mind understands. It communicates, disseminates. My art springs directly from core intuition and knowledge, perhaps even emotion is involved. There is caveat, in regard to emotion, because, of the three, it feels most remote. Of the three (intellect, intuition, emotion), emotion is the most difficult for me to visually depict with acuity. This does not surprise me. I am working my way down to the essential me, the instigator of all. Fear and flight, love and hate, passion and desire; emotion is most difficult to depict with lucidity. The more I do this, the more I make-art, the more confident I am; I have the right stuff, the talent, to make it real on canvas and paper. This surprises me. I need longevity to make it fully happen. I know not the path I am on. It is not laid out in front of me. I am required to take one step at a time. The chisel is at work. Each step chips away one more bit of the crap that obscures my truth in being and existence.
Yesterday's drawing is exceptional. It is both playful and serious, light and dark; new forms occupy a classical composition. It is what the world needs now.  Drawing 04·14·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It took me two days to make this drawing because I did not have the time to do it in one sitting. This time management is caused by the necessity that I frame works for my upcoming exhibition at AVA Gallery. If you follow the link to AVA you would see the announcement on AVA's homepage. Going away from a partially finished drawing, then returning to finish it, is both beneficial and detrimental. Beneficial because it forces introspection upon return to the half finished drawing (I see it afresh; I see it more clearly; I immediately recognize its successes and failures). The detrimental part is me losing track of the original question I asked. In this case, in the drawing I show today, I wanted to inspect the possibilities of vigor in an insistently classically flat composition, one designed to be seen flat in the viewer's face. I often think of the great success Pablo Picasso had using this method in his painting Guernica, which has a central flat, in the viewer's face, triangle, surrounded by two side panels.  Pablo Picasso, "Guernica", oil on canvas, 1937  Drawing 03·12·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I apprenticed for four years with a wonderful artist, Seymour Leichman. One of Seymour's first decrees to me, his apprentice and art student, was this: "A work of art should be an announcement, a performance, similar to one by a great actor on the stage; it should speak clearly and grandly, it should exude quality and strength of purpose." Today I show you two announcements, both with clarity and purpose. My first announcement is yesterday's drawing. It is a head-on classical composition. I enjoy its insistent compositional motion which forces the viewer to wander left, right, up and down; this is grand classicism, reminiscent of Pablo Picasso's best work (e.g., "Guernica"). My second announcement is a reproduction of the postcard for my upcoming exhibitions this Spring and Summer (see below). 2019 Spring & Summer Exhibitions – Announcement Postcard
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 4), oil on canvas, 55.5x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 09·19·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Just when I thought I was getting somewhere I find out there are many, many miles to go before I sleep! There ain't no Fat Lady here to tell me it's over. The painting, Burnt Norton, took a revolutionary stance. There is no going back. My commitment is large. My ambition is large. This compositional play, round versus static, is fascinating. Interesting it is that Picasso has been called a classicist because his compositions tend to be frontally centered and read like a facade. Matisse is thought to be the compositional revolutionary. Me, I am a revolutionary looking to animate by contrast, side to side, in and out. Bring it on!!!  Pablo Picasso, "Musicians with Masks", oil on canvas, 203.2x 188 cm, 1921  Henri Matisse, "Dance (II)", oil on canvas, 260x391 cm, 1910  Drawing 11·07·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches In 1908 Adolf Loos, an Austrian architect, wrote the milestone essay Ornament and Crime. Loos argued that ornamentation in art and architecture was, by its nature, ephemeral — locked into current trends and styles and, therefore, quickly dated. Loos, himself a Classicist at heart, argued instead for simple, timeless designs with time honored aesthetic and structural qualities. I too am a Classicist at heart! My intuition is, however, at war. My simplicity of spirit must mix with my complexity of emotions. The forms I make in my paintings and my drawings emote through their complexity, mimicking the complexity of my emotive intellect. I want them to impact myself, and the viewers of my art, through simplicity of means. Apparently I am unable to fully accept simplicity, even though my Classic heart requires it. Today's drawing is an example of this duplicity. It is simple in structure with complex forms. I will work this problem forever. I will find solutions. I will produce art that has the backbone of Classicism and the emotive power of ornate forms. I am not the first person to deal with this problem. Pablo Picasso is my prime example. All his art has time honored Classic balance. Even his great masterpiece, Guernica, used a composition that utilizes a simple, Classic central triangle with two side panels. Guernica's Classicism in structure allows Picasso's complex forms to writhe with emotions within a simple, organized, and stable composition.  Pablo Picasso, "Guernica", oil on canvas, 1937 |
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May 2025
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