Wait for it... Wait for it... Sometimes you just have to wait for it! It took a few weeks of observations, and a night of dreams, to get to the changes seen in this painting, Lava. The wait was filled with frustration, and anxiety. My suspicion, that something was wrong, is vindicated by the result. The new distortions, and new colors, enhance the painting. The enhancements are few, but their importance is great. Witness here a change in attitude, not simply a change in the physical make-up of a painting. Once again, I prove to myself, that intuition, i.e. knowledge hidden beneath layers of hyper-consciuoness, is more authentic than simple, superficial reasoning. I especially enjoy the leftward tilt of the major figure, reactive as it is against other forms in the painting. This play of forms is a play in motion, right, left, up, down, across, and back. Then there is the light, its contrast now animates from light to dark, stirred, as it is, by the pure white dabs added to the background. This version of Lava (#12) is by far the best. More importantly, it is a precursor of great things to come.
This drawing took me nearly four hours to complete. It is filled with normalcy and abnormality. Nobody has a nose like the man's, but the breast of the woman looks familiar. And so it goes — I am testing the waters of abstraction versus traditional figuration. For me, this is becoming a forever problem. Besides my addressing this issue of abstract forms versus more naturally derivative forms, I would like to point out the complexity of this drawing's space. The drawing, after all, is on a two dimensional piece of paper. Wandering through its space is a deceit, driven by form, perspective, light and shadow, and line. In this drawing, and in the drawing reproduced in my previous blog post, I have used lines to create surface values which simultaneously drive and animate space. The easiest place to see this occur is on the top of the box on which the woman sits.
It is important to me that you look carefully at one minor element: the woman's left hand. I drew that over and over, till it felt right, at least five times. Abstract and concrete, confusing and clear, alive and well. All of these seem to go together. At least, that is the way it feels today. Intellectually I am aswim. There is an ocean about me, full of life and objects and detritus. My job is not to know all of it, but to wander through it looking for truth, not beauty. Finding beauty is too easy. Beauty is a distraction from the facts of living which require introspection, followed by some kind of answer. My answers come by me poking around, touching this, touching that, asking, "Does that make sense?"
Yesterday started with two small drawings. Then came painting. The painting started with the priority of changing the man's left arm. It took off from there. I moved between altering his arm, his head, his neck, and the block-like abstract form in the upper left quadrant. The man's new, improved, stronger arm, works better. As does his head, neck, and shoulders. In summation, my universal acceptance of three-dimensional forms as abstract forms can be seen right here, right now. In this painting, Leap, it is occurring everywhere, in every form. That which is known as arm, or fish, or head, or block, or stream of water, are all manifested as robust, three-dimensional, formal animators, of the composition. Drawings from 04/30/2015, each are 14X11 inches, pencil on paper
I show two days of work today. This has to do with the way I am now approaching work. I am getting to the studio as early as possible. This is the new paradigm. It does not allow me to blog every day. Every other day my late afternoons get absorbed by an exercise session. By the time I am done exercising I do not have enough energy to go through the prep and the writing of this visual & verbal blog. About the work shown here. Interesting, isn't it?! Yesterday's drawings are reproduced below. Yesterday's second drawing was done after I looked at drawings by Willem de Kooning. Yesterday's first drawing had me exploring the problem of depth: I experimented with a possible solution using boxes, and shapes, with interior holes. But today's drawing (above) is the excellent one. Yesterdays' drawings came out of weary wonderment, but today's drawing flowed from a different portion of my intuition. It invented itself. I was a mere vessel of its execution. Today's drawing took the entire studio session. When producing a drawing as complex as this one, I sometimes step back and look with amazement at so many, many lines making up the composition. It happens as Picasso once explained... making art is made best as simple reaction, as in closing a window if a cold draft is annoying. Drawings-03·18·2015 Nos. 1 & 2, pencil on paper, 16X20 & 14X11 inches
I was feeling lethargic and tired. There were two things that had soaked up my energy: my worries and concerns about being swept away by Jury Duty, and the painting Asparagus. This was followed by my worrying about my low energy level! Then came a plumbing failure, which is making our house active with workmen. There are other distractions too. But yesterday I did get into the studio to produce the excellent drawing I show you today. It flowed from me with sensitivity and finesse. Something like this, a drawing that flows easily and well, must indicate a return of real energy, mental and physical. I think it important that I use my drawing as a gauge of my true energy level. I should acknowledge the ease, or difficulty, that is reflected in my drawing. Accepting this as indicator of true energy is much better than the alternative. The alternative is me worrying that I have low energy, then fighting against the need of rest.
Unusual and usual. Whatever! The 1, 2, 3 of getting it done is not dictated by an obviously rational order of things. Yet it gets done. There is the immediate and the distant, that which is obvious now and that which will become obvious after extended time and effort. Within the little I know, I know that the work I am doing now is more authentically mine than the work I was doing a month ago. I am becoming myself through work and time. Part of this becoming myself is not clearly work but more clearly acceptance. It is me giving up the fight to come up to the standards set by the masters. It is me accepting my own innate standards, which are surprisingly new and different than anything I know through education and observation. I am, to my surprise, something that has never existed before.
...row, row, row... refers to my having very little to say in recent blog posts. The images are coming, but not the words. I would like to think my images are supplanting words. That the images speak for themselves. That I have no great passion to verbally explain my thought process because the visual work is explaining itself.
Daily readers know I have been struggling with an accurate reproduction of Asparagus. Today's image is closer than usual, albeit imperfect. The bug (fly?) did move since my previous post. Yesterday's drawing was sustained and methodical. Every once in while I return to feeling my way through ALL the surface of a created form. Yesterday's drawing had that kind of contemplative process. I was swept away from recognizable thought, which felt good during the process. One other superficial idea came to me. I am beginning to title my paintings — this makes for quicker identification, and allows conversation without confusion, which is inherent when titles are numeric and date driven. However, I do not wish the interpretations of my paintings to be driven by titles. I named my most recently completed painting with a four work title. Now I believe it is distractingly verbose. One word titles are better for my intentions, i.e. let the viewer construe the interpretation. This said, I have reduced my most recently completed painting's title to Heresy. This shortened title appears below the painting's reproduction on my website, MEHRBACH.com, but not in this blog. This blog, after all, is a diary of my thought process. I will not go back in this blog's post to change its title. I think one of best titles of all time is Guernica, Picasso's great anti-war painting. Being one word, it can be referred to easily; the title, Guernica, immediately brings with it the mental image of the painting with little encumbrance of verbal distraction. Drawings-02·20·2015 Nos. 1, 2, & 3, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches Woe are reproductions. There is nothing like reality, obviously! The fly has to move. And the search for relevancy is simple when true. Writing about nothing is impossible. This is the reason sticking to reality is simple. There is nothing but reality, except reproductions. Which are neither simple nor true. Are you following this?
Untitled Drawings-02·07·2015 Nos. 1, 2, 3, pencil on paper, 14X11 inches How did I get to this need I have to make art, or make anything? There is definitely some kind of flame within me that calls me to fabricate, fashion, build, and assemble. At one time I believed it was my need to leave behind a legacy. I believed making art was evidence that I was here. These things I made would be here when I am no longer here. They would be traces of myself, which would continue to exist after I am gone. Now it does not seem so simple. There is much happening in my daily life, emotional and physical. I need to speak of these happenings in order to digest them, understand them, live with them. The weird part of this is the feeling that I am slowly inching toward the stuff I was born to make. The imagines are becoming more me, less derivative. I am not sure who wrote it, but I once read that every important voice has one great idea that drives ALL their work. Picasso has manipulation of form, Matisse had manipulation of color, Einstein had manipulation of space/time, et cetera. The problem is finding the means to express the great idea. I have not fully found my means, my voice. I am bolstered by the feeling that I am getting closer. My daily work is paying off.
|
To read my profile go to MEHRBACH.com.
At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
March 2024
|