 Drawing 10·17·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·17·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I cannot stop myself from seeing necessary improvements in everything I do. I am obsessed by bettering my communication via my images. Both of these drawings are very good, but they also fail to fully realize the depth I know I can reach if I just keep reaching for it.
The top drawing would have been better with a simple twist of space, i.e., it would have been more potent if the meandering frontal form slide its top behind the lighter-valued snake-like form, but remaining in front of the pole-like form. I will fix that today. I will show it to you tomorrow. The bottom drawing will remain the same. It is a prelude to many more sliding-down-hill compositions, like landscapes in peril of disappearing into the sea.
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 Drawing 09·22·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·22·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·22·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Everything is on the line, everything is concerned with the impact of form & line & shadow & smudge & composition & light. Everything is more clear to me. These drawings are more and many; they are better to me. These drawings are beginnings, true steps in the right direction. They are closer to being myself.
The last drawing is incomplete.  Drawing 08·16·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Preparing just one painting for exhibition takes an enormous amount of time; this distracts from my preferred endeavors. Of course I should promote my work! Yesterday I had time to finish a drawing; so nice! I completed a drawing begun on August 16. Today, however, I must begin to prepare the PechaKucha requested by Silvermine Galley for their 70th Annual A-ONE Exhibition, opening September 5. "Pecha Kucha" is Japanese for "chit chat". I am tasked with making a 20 slide presentation of my life and work, also with a look into my studio workspace. A PechaKucha runs quickly: 20 images, each with a 20 second VoiceOver. I will post a link here when the PechaKucha is complete.
The drawing I show today is research into my interest in movement. I wish to engage the viewer in multiple ways, but here I concentrate on relentless compositional dynamism. This internal image energy is being added to my fascinations with form, light, and three-dimensional space.  Drawing 07·08·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I draw with such extreme facility that I fear my enjoyment of marking distracts me. Yesterday's drawing is clogged with interesting forms and interesting ideas. But, does this drawing procure expression of my emotional and intellectual self? Or is it simply a joyous expression of marks? Is it just a lot of nice marks because I make marks so well and so easily? I make forms easily too. I compose easily. Do I mark without reservation because it is easy for me? Making Art takes composure, reservation! Art requires qualification; I need to contemplate, be mindful in the doing. Do I agree, or not? Do I approve or not? Acting with reservation means acting in the state of doubt. Mindfulness is being in nexus: knowing, doubting, acting, marking, deliberating, deciding.
 Drawing 05·03·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 02), oil on canvas, 66¼x55½ 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)} The title of today's blogpost refers to acceptance; I accept the means to my full express is two-dimensional; I am talking about the reality of my substrates. I make art standing in front of flat pieces of paper and flat rectangles of canvas; I draw upon them, both figuratively and literally. I accept composition as a 2D problem; yes, I enjoy alluding to the in/out artifice of 3D space; I no longer delude myself; I cannot accomplish the emotional power I seek, or full engagement of myself, if I do not first engage through two-dimensional expression.
I feel very good about yesterday's work. It is not an end, but it is a step. I am calling out, I am saying, "I know..., this is reality; here is truth in media. Look! I am expressing myself clearly; Why did it take me so long?" My answer, "Because I thought there was a means to expression through defeating the two-dimensional aspect of paper and canvas." I was wrong. I should make sculpture if I wish solely to investigate via the third dimension. I did once. That was not my bag. I enjoy too much the full sweep of hand and arm, the marking of paper and canvas. I enjoy too much the artifice of light on a 2D surface, and the use of color to do so. I enjoy too much these two-dimensional problems.  Drawing 04·26·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The curse of Covid-19 is upon us all, but there is luxury to found within the detriment, distractions, and detritus. It is the luxury of super-concentration upon oneself. This behavior is normally diminished by outside world concerns, like my exhibitions. Now I have less concerns because I am here in my hunkered-downed home and studio. These luxurious moments are available despite sorrow for loss of life and loss of normality. Yesterday I continued my quest for self-acceptance, and acceptance of the efficacy of flat-on, classical composition. The drawing I made yesterday is complex, but very readable; it moves up/down, left/right, but little to the in/out. It is organized as any flat plane should be organized in order to be read easily, like a page of print with illustrations; nicely two-dimensional in its solution. The painting I show below is the same as shown in my 4/24/2020 Blog Post. I am calling this painting complete; I show it again because I am struggling to reproduce it adequately. This is take-2, from a photo shot yesterday. Reproduction of my art is difficult, never fully satisfying. That is another tragedy of the Covid Era; for full and accurate impact you are gonna have to wait to see my work in person, as it should be seen, as it must be seen to fully comprehend the nuance that is present in all great art.  "Your Decisions Matter" (2020 No.2, state 7), oil on canvas, 52x55½ inches {"It's essential that you believe as if your decisions matter... reality isn't important; what's important is your belief..." - Ted Chiang, "Exhalation", 2019}  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 04·19·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·19·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches My focus is moving toward page organization; I desire immediate, full engagement of the viewer. This cannot be achieved without the viewer's first encounter being head-on impactful. I will continue to explore this problem. My looking for answers will never end. You will see me exploring, drawing by drawing, painting by painting. Yesterday's drawings are steps along my way on the path that is this investigation.
 Drawing 02·09·2020, graphite on paper, 20x16 inches  "Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 21), 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 do not know what I do not know. There are all kinds of ways to create depth and internal energy on a flat surface. I am working toward that, but look (below) at this painting by Julie Mehretu! Mehretu condenses and releases form. Her work is a revelation to me. In my drawing, the one I show today, I play this way too. However, the depth in Mehretu's "Stadia II" is far greater than that which I create is either of my works shown in this post. In "Stadia II" Mehretu creates depth by use of perspective lines at the bottom of the canvas, and smaller forms at the top. Depth is forced in other ways too. The clogging of darker forms at the top forces the eye to think hanging banners (like in a basketball stadium); the eye passes underneath those banners, back to the gray forms that reside (artificially) behind them. This is an exciting, masterful vision; one that creates a robust vision of three-dimensions on a two dimensional surface. To see Mehretu's mid-career Retrospective, visit the Whitney Museum of American Art (June 26 — September 20) or the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (now through May 17).  Julie Mehretu, "Stadia II", 2004, ink and acrylic on canvas, 9x12 feet  Drawing 09·15·2019 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·15·2019 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 8), oil on canvas, 37x61.5 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 love onions. They go in everything I make, except brownies. Moly has two definitions: (1) a southern European plant related to the onion, with small yellow flowers. (2) a mythical herb with white flowers and black roots, endowed with magic properties. I'll go with the second definition because my work is becoming magical; in the very least, it is magical to me! I have been working very hard on staying mindfully centered while making art. This is falling into play that is totally dependent on recognizing momentary truth in my marks, my forms, my composition, and my attitude. I am not sure this makes sense to you, but it is making more and more sense to me. The result is me getting closer to a reality that I cannot anticipate, but I recognize as one step in my path to an unknown, but totally legitimate, future. Holy Moly! My art continues to become more self-fulfilling. This continually surprises me. It is a thrilling journey! It is filled with unexpected truth.
Yesterday's drawings hunker down, into the stuff that makes me want to draw. Yesterday's painting took one more step toward its satisfaction. Yesterday, in an email, a friend of mine said he preferred Beethoven's Symphonies to Beethoven's quartets. I am just the opposite. Beethoven's Late Quartets have, to me, immediate potency; they are an intoxicant I measure by the great amount of my emotional responsiveness. I feel the same about several of Schubert's quartets, and also of a few of Brahms' piano trios. My drawings are my quartets. My paintings are my symphonies. When over and done, I love them equally, but the drawings are more directly related to my immediate emotions. I believe this emotional immediacy is the reason I thirst to listen to Beethoven's quartets more than his symphonies. Beethoven's symphonies are fully satisfying, but like a painting, they take much more time, and involvement, to fully realize. I am an anxious and needy sort; my immediate connection to the nuanced emotions in Beethoven's Late Quartets allows me to fall deeply, into a passionate trance. |
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October 2020
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