I am a man raised upon my intellect, and upon my physical ability to go fast and endure. Yet I am here. I am discovering, through fits and starts and stops and failures and successes, authenticity is revealed not simply by intellect, nor by the ability to call up physical prowess. I will reveal that which causes me wonderment and joy through mindfulness. This I know, because through profound failures, and because of profound successes, this truth has identified itself to me. Also, I hear this truth so often. This information is surfacing in many places. Today I was listening to a podcast with the man who has taught NBA basketball players to access mindfulness. That which he spoke is that which I am discovering. To hear this Podcast go to George Mumford, meditation master to the NBA’s stars – Kobe, Shaquille, Jordan – brings us his zen.
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. It is beginning to feel more like contemplation and less like intellectualization. Yesterday's drawing shows me going back and forth between my contemplative-acting intuition and my question-asking intellect. The first drawing is me producing a casually flowing drawing, which ends with an intellectualized, verbal question. This conflict may exhibit problems that occur when the id and the ego are in combat. The second drawing is straightforwardly about combat. The transition from drawing #1 to drawing #2 may exhibit this mental confusion, but it may also be about the world's combative confusion. The strongly male component that instigates present world combat is apparent. Thus the extreme maleness of the figure in drawing #2. Artistically, the figure plays against an abstract background. This is more important to me than any contemporary, or classically mythological, message I am trying to convey. BTW: Today's reproduction of the painting, Lava, is the closest I have gotten to the original. In yesterday's blog post, Lava's reproduction is too color intensive, i.e. it is more color saturated than the original. Drawings from 5/24/2015, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches
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
The painting "Leap" is beginning to make sense to me. So is my drawing. Perhaps I am getting even with myself. Sometimes living feels like a race. I am in a simple run, trying to catch up with my internalization of all experienced, known and seen. I hope I win before the end. Right now I feel I am running as fast as I am able and I can perceive the image of truth in front me. I am not winning, but my margin of being behind is smaller than it once was. This is a good thing!
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.
Yes, this one appears done, finished! This painting is an amazing gateway of visual possibilities. Opportunities abound. I am deeply feeling a need to examine undeveloped ideas. My drawings also exhibit this crack, where the light of insight is pouring in. Another surprise: I am thinking that all my works are now asking for titles. This indicates there is a commencement of ideas which declares my restrictions of a few months ago as alien. Untitled Drawings-02·11·2015 Nos. 1, 2, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches
Untitled Drawings-02·08·2015 Nos. 1, 2, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches Compositional play is so important to me that today I continue to show the drawings in "Gallery" format, despite there being only two. This allows you to get the compositional impact first, then, if you choose, you can CLICK upon a reproduction to see it in full screen.
About today's title, I need to explain something to my readers about my artistic development. Twenty-seven years ago I was an artist making Three-Dimentional Abstractions that were getting a lot of notice and critical praise (see some of these at MEHRBACH.com). But I was not making enough money to support myself and my family. I had to go to work. I taught for 22 years. Those years interrupted my natural development as an artist. They were years of happiness, of personal learning, but also of frustration. I grew as a person, but Looking back, the depth of my artistic knowledge seems to have grown slowly, or not at all. I now have enough freedom to, day after day, be in the studio. The last four and a half years have increased my artistic knowledge. I am feeling more competent now than I have for many years. Day-to-day work is necessary to unravel the confusion that is me. My optimism is increasing with every day of self-discovery. I can do this, and perhaps I can get to making the work I was born to make. Time is limited. Loss of time is my biggest fear. I work like an athlete, in my life and in the studio. If I am to succeed, health is primary. 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.
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At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
April 2024
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