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. 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. The vacuum I worry about is the bottom swash of crimson color in the painting "2017 No.4". I find myself thinking I should add flourish. Should I add something to identify that space in the three-dimensional artifice that is this painting? Or would said flourish diminish the impact of the painting? As usual there is only one way to find out. Do it. Step Back. Consider. Allow, or disallow. Change if necessary. I am not in the studio today. That may a good thing. I have 24 hours to mull.
Yesterday's drawings are me questioning. They feel a bit without purpose, except as questions. I see little things in these drawings that give me joy. It is in those joyful little things that I understand a way to proceed. I worry about the demands to perform. I tell myself, "Not to Worry." Practice makes substance. The more I do this activity, art-making, the more true it is. This trueness exists despite any conflicting and confusing emotions. In other words, it is not for me to judge. I must continue to believe that any activity, when humanly performed to the best of one's ability, becomes true through the effort of trying. It is apt for me to quote Oliver Wendell Holmes: "Every calling is great when greatly pursued."
Yesterday's studio activity brought two interesting drawings, and a turn toward more effective color and value contrasts, in the painting "2017 No.4". 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. The struggle is on... in yesterday's post I wrote of the impact my seeing a Mark Rothko painting had on me. My painting, "2016 No.17", cannot be moved in the direction of simplification. It is what it is. Yesterday's drawings begin with one containing three objects piled on top of each other. Obvious to me, this is Rothko's influence, emulating the three areas of color in his painting which was reproduced in yesterday's blog post. It ain't easy for me, this struggle with clarity of emotional purpose. Yesterday's drawings, one after the other, are looking for truth in action, but they get more complex, not more simple.
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. Time consuming it is, these demands. My work is calling for it! I am just following its call. The requests must not be ignored. Thus the work makes itself. I am the conduit, channeling visual truth.
That first paragraph is scary. It reads like one would expect from a deluded prophet who believes he has been called upon to follow some mystical, spiritual enlightenment. All I know is this: my knowledge continues to expand. I see the work in front of me more precisely than ever. I can feel its need for a dark mark in one place and a subtle gray mark in another. This is the same for color and for form, as well. Each work's requirements are self-evident. Yesterday I completed the painting "2016 No. 15". I am glad. I want to move on to a new painting. Following my theme for today, the painting "2016 No.15" demanded more precise shadowing on its "floor," so I did it! As good as this is, I know I could continue to squiggle, to reform; the niggle is always there, never goes away. In the larger scheme of things, that would be contra-productive. It is better to begin a new work. Lingering on an older work would have me correcting for the knowledge deficiency that was present when I began that work. Rather than trying to correct the initial shortfall of knowledge, it is better to begin anew. It is better to accept the indigenous limits of a work, and move on with greater understanding to a new work, riding with loftier knowledge right from the get-go! I am so sorry that my emotions take over and distract from the business at hand. Yesterday I was dragging. The restless night before took its toll. Still, I like yesterday's two drawings. I was too tired to paint. The painting "2016 No.14" sat in front of me. I did not have the energy to act upon it. The artifice of shadows cast on the artifice of the floor, disturb. The local and the atmospheric colors don't jive. They disturb. They distract. Making art is like being seated in a restaurant, feeling a breeze from the air conditioner blowing across one's neck and head. It disturbs. It distracts. You move. "2016 No.14" requires a changes. It disturbs. It distracts. I need to move upon it. That will wait till tomorrow. This is my apology to myself. Making art is an iterative process. It is the same process I learned when I studied engineering. Two steps forward, one back, two forward, et cetera. Yes, it never ends, but it does move forward. Knowledge is forever acquired. There is immortality in making art. It is never done. There is always a next step. The limit of a painting is the limit of current knowing. Knowing has no limits, but it cannot be acquired more quickly than it reveals itself. Art is a record of the acquisition of knowing. The greatest tragedy in being human is the physicality of it all. We require rest, sleep. We wear down. Fortunately rest brings renewed energy. Tomorrow I will work on "2016 No.14".
I am driving my newest painting forward, s-l-o-w-l-y. In a few of my recent paintings I have fear I have not adequately balanced atmospheric color with local color. Since I adamantly adhere to the artifice of the third-dimension, this paying attention to balance of color, real and imagined, must be done. I am not, after all, just playing with color relationships. I am trying to do everything a painting can do; form, color, composition, all in harmony, and all speaking with emotional resonance.
My drawings continue to experiment with the use of a repetitive form to drive 3D space. |
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April 2024
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