 "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 13), oil on canvas, 56½x47½ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" - anonymous}  Drawing 12·31·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches 2020 ends with me completing the first painting I began in 2020, "Clever Liars." This year has been an interesting journey. All in all, the 2020 journey has been fruitful. Obviously there has also been an abundance of fear. Yet here we are. Where there is life there is hope. My hope is unrelenting. My ambition is unrelenting. The two works shown today are cumulative, filled with ideas explored in 2020. These are, as I always say, stepping stones, but they are also works completed. Joy comes when I accept the success that is made real in artworks completed. I want to do more because each work completed instigates ideas. I want to explore and research every idea. I enter 2021 with oodles to explore.
 "Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 19), oil on canvas, 66¼x57⅝ inches {"Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52)} This is the final final state of "Amidst a Falling World." Yesterday the canvas was taken off my work wall, then stretched on its newly manufactured stretcher. This morning I accurately measured its dimensions, which are very close to the last version. I did have to re-paint the edges to insure the surface is consistent from edge to edge.
 "Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 18), oil on canvas, 66¼x57¼ inches {"Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52)} "Amidst a Falling World" is complete. There are multiple emotions involved in completion. It is death and life and learning and despair (over not knowing enough); it is an end and a beginning. It is informative, but sadly never as wonderful as I wish. Immediately upon completion my desire to begin anew is great. Everything fails a little, as well as succeeds a little. It is within the perception of failure that the next work begins.
 Drawing 06·18·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I did not spend a lot of time altering this drawing — perhaps 60 minutes. A heat wave hit; I spent a good part of the day resurrecting an old air conditioner. Then, late in the afternoon, to the studio; this drawing's final image came quickly. The studio is cool and comfortable; it sits on a cement slab, kept dry by dehumidifier. OK, too much non-art-related information? Onward! Back to the studio I go! Just have to say... I like state 2 of "Drawing 06·18·2020" much more than state 1.
 "Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 24), oil on canvas, 38.5x62.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} I declare "Something Else Entirely" finished! The drawing (below) is NOT finished. Looking for completion is an impossible task. I move on when works get to a place where they have said as much as they are capable of saying.  Drawing 02·26·2020 (state 1), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 16), oil on canvas, 60x33 inches {"And I want to know the same thing everyone wants to know, how it going to end? Drag your wagon and your plow over the bones of the dead out among the roses and the weeds. You can never go back, and the answer is no, and wishing for it only makes it bleed." -Tom Waits, song lyric} How's It Gonna End has ended! Today you see its 16th state. This wondrous solution occurred as much in my mind as on canvas. The last two months of my studio life has been more about preparing works for exhibition than making work. All the while I was doing other stuff the painting How's It Gonna End sat there on the work-wall. I saw it every day. Somedays I looked hard, other days I did not pay attention. Slowly I deciphered its need. It wanted to be resolved through simplicity. The day came when I needed to do it. The true solution came from my working the canvas itself. I eliminated some of it, then I exaggerated what was already there. Bingo! Done!
The inflection point came when I knew all is prepared for my exhibitions. I relaxed. The solution to How's It Gonna End came quickly and easily. Suddenly I feel in control of my artistic life again. More good things will come soon... after I deliver my works to Bromfield Gallery on Monday June 3.  Drawing 05·05·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am framing again — this time for my Bromfield Gallery exhibit (opening is June 7). I am keeping my hand in making art — drawing. The painting "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2) is on my work wall in state 15; it is begging me for a major change, one that should make the composition fully expressive and fully sound. That will happen soon.
 "The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019 No.1, state 15), oil on canvas, 67x59.5 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}  "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 7), oil on canvas, 59.5x32 inches {"Life is sweet at the edge of a razor; And down in the front row of an old picture show the old man is asleep as the credits start to roll. And I want to know, the same thing everyone wants to know, how's it going to end?" -Tom Waits} I am nearing my exhibition dates for 2019. I am getting ready. Curiously, I am also looking hard at the means I use to speak. I am cleaning up my work, paring it down to essentials. Thus comes the completion of "The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019) and the simplification of "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2). "How's It Gonna End" may simplify even further; I may remove that orange form in the lower right. I believe I am learning the most important lesson of all — to speak well one must speak to the point, remove the falderal, be as simple as possible with one's message.
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 15), oil on canvas, 63x66 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"} Sometimes T.S. Eliot could be a bit long-winded. Perhaps his Burnt Norton and mine share long-windedness. My Burnt Norton is almost complete. I need to give it a few minor changes, enhancements, alterations — all to bring it to conclusion. Strange it is; This finishing off a painting feels sad. Burnt Norton has taken me, slow step by slow step, through multiple movements; each toward summation. Its journey was often cumbersome, sometimes difficult, always interesting. This is wide-awake living at its best!
 "Along for the Ride" (2018 No.7, state 16), oil on canvas, 65x53 inches {"Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong... and just go along for the ride." - Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"}  Drawing 09·04·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches You know it when you see it! Along for the Ride has absolutely completed its ride; therefore declared complete! Yesterday's drawing is wonderfully exploratory. I am, it is, anticipating my next painting (which I hope to begin this week). Enjoy! I am!
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February 2021
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