What's it all about? For me it is about self-discovering my own organization. I have lived a life looking to quantify and qualify, to make sense of the confusion I was born into. I drifted out of a youth organized for me, i.e., childhood nurtured by parents, school, athletics, a science career, being educated as an Artist (Apprenticeship and an M.F.A. under the mentorship of Philip Guston). None of it satisfied me. None of it made complete sense to me. I was told what was seen as correct, not what made proper sense to me. I began organizing myself. It has been a slow process. I really did not know who I was or what I wanted. I decided to abandon the organizations that had been given me, those from outside myself. I began the process of replacing those outside organizations with an organization I had to make myself. This is happening, but very slowly. The process of me abandoning one organized activity after the next was easier than creating my own organized self. Now I am alone. I have to organize myself by myself. I have chosen Art-Making as my organizational process. The problem with this choice is the limits of my ability to organize myself. I have not done well. I believe I have failed because I have not accepted the absolute discipline required to make something fully whole, fully organized. Like everyone, I began with bare bone instincts, instincts I had acquired though education and experimentation. I know now I must choose wisely by choosing to follow the instincts that make most sense to me. Yesterday’s drawings made strong choices. During their process I had to erase bad choices and make better ones. Bad choices come easy. Good choices are hard. Good choices are ones that rigorously follow the basis of my personal instincts; they are the things that make me know “this is me.” Choosing those “good instincts” has not been easy. I must nurture this practice, this discipline of choosing wisely, choosing correctly. This is not easy. My following good choices has been very slow, back and forth, often taking the easy way before the hard discipline way. I have much work to do.
The one from yesterday is more complex than I have recently desired. The one from December 5 got additions of the classic indications of space, i.e., a couple of straight lines. Both are studies in space and time; both have taught me places to go. (Methinks No.2 will get one more shift today — No.2 has become a lesson in simple, linear spatial indicators.)
"The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019 No.1, state 4), oil on canvas, 66x59.5 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} Play within a play — that is the way of all the earth. It is the way of my newest painting as well. It is art mimicking reality by being reality within reality. The problem for me is this: I want my paintings to reflect the messiness that is living while also reflecting the human effort to organize in order to defeat the messiness. "The Doctrine of Liberty" is showing signs of being the closest I have come to achieving this goal. It ain't over yet! This is a lofty goal. To achieve messiness within organization I must sustain control all the way thru, till the end of this painting's making.
"Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 20), 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"} "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." This painting is Burnt Norton, in its speculation and in its presence. Yesterday's entire studio session was used to enhance Burnt Norton, getting it ever-so-close to its perpetual possibility. I must declare (as a visual artist): The more one knows the more one sees the more one's discipline must be used to clarify one's knowledge in a visual product.
I go in and out of hyper-trust of intuition. It seems natural that I must now hyper-discipline myself in order to assemble and utilize that which I have learned through intuitive trust. There is a fine balance where intuition and intellect work together to produce a product of great impact and authenticity. I am on the edge of that, but it will take discipline to get there. Yesterday's drawing was a small step. Now I must bring it to the painting that sits in front of me, 2017 No.13.
Yesterday's drawing is me better realizing my roots. The drawings from the previous two days of studio activity look and feel wrong. Wrong in the sense that those previous drawings appear too figuratively attached. I believe they are good drawings. Good in terms of all things formal, i.e., composition, value and size contrast, use of scale, the use of light and the third-dimension. Confusion is easy. Clarity is hard. The clarifying factor was the beginning of the painting 2017 No.9. It feels right. The struggle today is to keep it right. This is the discipline that is necessary in order to be successful in this game of making art
Who's there? Not who you think! These are abstract images, yes, but they are also non-representational. The visualization is emotionally referenced, but not unkind or aggressive, just exploratory. That said, the spatial play, insisted upon in these drawings, is robust. One can follow the floor via shadows and marks. The outgrowth of forms above the plane is scary. The unease within these drawings is, to me, like hovering over a chasm while walking on a rope bridge. I am surprised by my personal discomfort. Is this a good thing? I don't know. When a viewer engages with Picasso's Guernica, or one of the more emotive self-portraits by Van Gogh or Rembrandt, is feeling safe important? Revelatory they are. Representational works are more direct than the drawings I show you today. Representation in Guernica, or in a self-portrait, is obvious. Do not take the images represented in my drawings as obvious!
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. Fluidity means moving with supreme grace and skill. I have taken another step in that direction, toward command of my talent and skill. I am referring to painting. Yesterday I approached my painting as I approach my drawing, without fear of stroke and mark because I know I can follow each of them, one after another, until I get them right. This seems like a simple concept, but it is far more complex than I had known before. Because, I have to know where to go if I am to go toward "rightness". My trust in my knowing has jumped. It takes knowledge, and trust in knowledge, to find visual truth on paper or canvas.
It's "Data"❗️
A day in the studio is not number 1, or number 2, or number 3. It is a gathering of information. It is research. Amazingly endless, it teaches while it exalts! Selfish, some would say, because it is paying homage to myself. Seeking myself is as mysterious as seeking a higher order in the universe. It is there and it is to be discovered and revealed. Such is my work. |
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
|