 "Silence, Exile, and Cunning" (2022 No.1, state 3), oil on canvas, 45½x57 inches, {"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning." - James Joyce (1882-1941), "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916)} Right now this painting, "Silence, Exile, and Cunning", is nothing special. It requires some sauce, special sauce. That will happen today. This painting lacks my dreamscape. I dream of playful building blocks. places seen within my mind's eye, forms deeply related to my personal panorama of visual excellence, things I want to see that do not exist.
 Drawing 03·30·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 9A), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"} Expansion and contraction of thought is the second guessing that is making-art, it is doublethink as defined by the English dictionary: "the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, especially as a result of political indoctrination." No, I am not politically indoctrinated, but I do get indoctrinated by inclination. I too easily believe in my decisions, only to realize a bit later that the contrary may be true, or not. The "or not" is the doublethink.
I did not work on the painting "Startle & Lay Siege"; I merely reproduced it with a slice taken off the right edge. It is better without that slice; today's version is substantially better than "state 9", so I call it "state 9A", which is about 2½ inches less wide than its predecessor. Yesterday's drawing is an intelligent use of positive and negative space. I am becoming the artist I want to be, one who acts within the moment of creating, feeling my way by touch and feel as pencil stroke creates line and form and negative space, each created as moments in creation.  Studies of successful bursts of creativity indicate a contrary idea; the most creative moments occur when processing is slow, measured, moderate, and deliberative. All of us have read books, seen films, which depict creation as a high energy, manic event. This isn't true. Truth-finding occurs slowly. Inventive creation is a slow recognition of truth. For me, right now, this is such a time. I have slowed. My concern with the pandemic Covid-19 virus has slowed me. Consequently my current work is forceful, honest, true; more absolute in its correctness than I have ever experience before.
Yesterday I finished the drawing began on 3/8/2020. It is left versus right, clarity in form versus less referential form; left side is pure pyramidal forms versus the right side filled with inventively more chaotic forms. This drawing is an allegory in reasoning, one way or the other way. Neither way is correct.  Drawing 07·29·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I feel extraordinarily creative. Yesterday's drawing surprised me with its insight and invention. There is opening deep within me. I am grandly inquisitive. The answers spilling from me are possibilities, one innovative answer after another. I do not fear challenge or risk. I am in the goodness of being human, of living.
 Drawing 03·14·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Last night I awoke at 4am. I usually sleep quite well, with tons of dreams, but rarely do I awake with questions and self-doubt. Last night I did. Where can I do better? I have not worked on the painting "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2) for a week. Also, I want to move onto a new painting, but doubt surrounds me; I have been stepping carefully, looking out for poop. My being awake last night informed me: it is time to move boldly. Here comes creativity! Today I will return to "How's It Gonna End". Yesterday's drawing, last night's disturbance, and my recent lack of initiative on "How's It Gonna End"... all of this spells time for me to leap, or die! How does yesterday's drawing come into this? It is the left side of yesterday's drawing that is informative. It is the right side of the painting "How's It Gonna End" that requires a big fix. Information for the fix is in the left of yesterday's drawing.
 "2018 No.1" (state 3), oil on canvas, 68x53 inches {"Cave", "At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Bernice Bobs her Hair" (1920)}  Drawing 05·08·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Within the art I show today can be seen a wide range of my work to come. The expanse of my concerns widens more quickly than I am able to make art. Linus Carl Pauling said, "If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away." When I studied Chemistry Pauling was one of my heroes. I was a very good Chemist, but my ideas came slowly and I wanted fast. Art allows me to move quickly. I am on my own; I don't have to pay attention to the many confusing voices that speak more error than truth. (BTW: One of papers continues to be given high regard in Chemical Oceanography: mehrbach et al 1973, which has been sited 1862 times in the scientific literature.)
 Drawing 08·01·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Historically the latter days of summer, late July thru August, have seen me more contemplative than me sparking fresh ideas. This appears to be true in yesterday's work. First I made a new drawing (above), then I did a little fix to Drawing 07.27·2017 No.2 (below). Rarely do I go back and contemplate drawings from my past. I did yesterday. This is the mood I am in. I believe this is a gathering of energy and information prior to my next big creative period.  Drawing 07·27·2017 No.2 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches    There is no easy way to make this right. Does time exist at all? Is it not simply the zombie syndrome? We are a bunch of wax and atoms and little bugs that need to work together to find a way to move, despite there being nowhere to go. Symbiosis is the thing. And so, I search among the rubble that is me. Fortunately, I believe I understand better the more I exist, the more I do. So yes, time does exist! At least, time exists in the memory I have created because I am optimistic. I am going somewhere. Yesterday's drawings show progress. They are unique. They have some resemblance to that which I have created before. Still, they are uniquely their own images. My trust in this process increases the more I do. My confidence in process will bring me back to painting. Tomorrow I will return to my most recent painting, "2016 No.4", then I will begin a new painting, "2016, No.5". Hallelujah!
  Yesterday's work is very good. This bring joy, but it also brings fear. The heavy-duty work has just begun. Just so you know... Now is when everything I make has quality if I approach its making with focused energy. The problem is... focused energy is not always available. For example, You can see ups & downs in the work posted here over the last several days. Yes, you can actually SEE it, because this is VISUAL art! It hangs there, forever scrawled in pencil and paint, and with reproductions always available on the internet. I am turning a corner. I am going from art whose possibilities are limited by skill to art whose possibilities are limited by imagination and invention. I fear failure, because energy and time are limited. So I train, like an athlete. I balance my times of performance with good night's rest, good diet, and good physical exercise. Art-making is like a see-saw. It seems it would be nice to always be on the up-side of the plank, but one of the joys of getting to the up-side is that swoop in the arch. Limits must exist in order to fully enjoy. A bottom must exist to enjoy the top and the journey to the top. That's OK. I just wish an end did not exist.  "2016 No. 2" (painting-02·16·2016, state 2), oil & acrylic marker on canvas, 55X62 inches  Drawing-02·16·2016, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches It has happened again! After all my experience it seems I should recognize this cycle! The drawing in my previous post is decrepit and confused. It marked an end of a cycle of creativity. Like gravity waves, this cycle has a long wavelength and has peaks and troughs. Now I am ascending out of a trough. Yesterday surprised with a substantial drawing and first marks on a new canvas. It was a day that lifted my spirits. Out I came from befuddlement and disarray! Very difficult for me is to admit to cyclical defeat by uncertainty. I go into the studio, knowingly in a muddle. I power on, making a mess of that before me. The question I ask as I trudge is, "Is it better to try with ineptitude, or is it better not to try a all?" Mostly my discipline overwhelms me, so I ineptly hang in there, making bad art. The question I ask continues to have no clear answer.  "2016 No. 2" (painting-02·16·2016, state 1), acrylic marker on canvas, 55X62 inches |
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