I have been showing up, patiently, waiting for this. Yesterday the girl in the right panel of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 became right. I am not saying she is perfect, but the solution is there. She has taken on the proper mood. The bend of her body relative to her head is right. Her relative sizes, scale of head to body, scale of her to the rest of the triptych, et cetera, is right and good. If showing up is 80% of success, then hanging in there is 19%. I will go with Thomas Edison for the last 1%: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration."
Yesterday's drawing is surprising in subject. I am not going to pull it apart by analyzing it. Yesterday was a confusing day because of problematic family negotiations. I was so glad to get to the studio, but only got there after hours of talk. Not my ideal day! I am definitely better suited to be alone, or at least that's how I feel on days like yesterday. The wonder of my present state of being is the wonder of the studio. I am now so well trained that after I begin to make art I am swept away by its problem solving. Making art is truly transformative. The completeness of this transformation is relatively new. It brings new meaning to Woody Allen's comment, "80% of success is showing up."
In 1906 Picasso spent an enormous time on two paintings, Portrait of Gertrude Stein (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York City). Yesterday I read again about this period in Picasso's life. Gertrude Stein said she sat 90 times for her portrait, then Picasso wiped out the face in the portrait and left for summer vacation in Gósol, Spain. In the autumn Picasso returned to Paris with the finished portrait. Also in 1906 Picasso began a series of nearly 1000 studies preparing his way to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (completed in July 1907). Methinks I complain too much! It was the intensity and discipline that Picasso poured into these two paintings in the years 1906 & 1907 that transitioned Picasso from a good artist to a great artist. This, 2014, is my year of intensity and discipline. I have complained about the slowness of my transitioning, as witnessed in two recent paintings. I have been substantially altered by the work and time I have poured into Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 and, earlier this year, into Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. The focussed, disciplined, and dedicated work of this year, has made me a better painter, and a better artist. It isn't over. I will continue to learn, I will continue to work, but today I am recognizing the profundity of this period in my life and art. Picasso has helped me enormously, not only by his products, which are his paintings and his drawings, but by his example of discipline and belief that the effort of the here and now will bring a proper end.
Notice, please, yesterday's changes in Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014. The man in the left panel is much better. I am always expecting an instant of surprise, the shock of the new. But it does not happen that way. Slowly but surely, moment to moment, day to day, I re-evaluate. I ask myself questions, I second guess my impulses, and I make art. And so it goes. I believe the reason I have put off a return to the finish of the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 can be found in this activity of re-evaluation, which is pre-occupying me. Yesterday's drawing is example. It took nearly all my studio time. The remainder was used to look at what I have done, to look at what others have done, and to question all of it.
Yesterday was a creepy day. I went into the studio intending to finish the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014, but found myself wondering about its validity. The positive spin on this is... yesterday was a day of self-evaluation. The painting I am about to finish, and the one that preceded it (Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014), are disciplined spans of time, in which I am going from the artist of "take what I have" to the artist of "consolidate and move on." This appears to be self re-eveluation.
I am about to move on, yet I know I have to finish that which I have wrought. It (Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014) has merit, with or without re-evaluation. The problem I face is my own making. I required practice. I needed to discipline my manner of approach in painting, so I made large, major paintings, a diptych, then a triptych. In the heat of making these works I did not know that these paintings are mere moments in my education. I know now that they are springboards to more expressive work. Of course, the more expressive work has not yet been done, so what am I writing about? Isn't every work one does a bit of education? At this juncture it is nonsensical for me to predict the future of my work. Perhaps prediction is always nonsensical. Making is the only true informant. Thus I must continue painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 until it is done. The new work will come in its own time and it will not be nonsensical if it springs from all I know. Yesterday's drawing is a good one. It is illuminating. I did not labor it. I did not spend time contemplating it. It flashed itself onto paper with little criticism from me. Sitting here, writing this, I am feeling that all the excitement of figuring out the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 is over. Perhaps that is the message in yesterday's drawing. My muse is there, looking over me. Her role is done. It is I who must arise and do the right thing. I must complete the painting despite my muse having become a mere onlooker. Simply put, I need to do the work to finalize the painting.
Yesterday felt weird. I could not stop listening to the radio (NPR). I fumbled through the day, thinking all the while that I was ineffective, distracted. But NO! This drawing appears to me, today, to be the foundation of something true. It is not an end all, nor is it absolutely new vocabulary, but its process of creation, though my distraction, had authenticity, and thus merit. Yes, the guy in the back is in an impossible position, especially without a chair to hold him. It is this impossibility that makes sense to me. Allowing the abstraction of the forms on the table is also important. This is allowance of the juice of intuition to flow. I pretty much am accepting that if I am to be authentic I much allow myself to wander without anticipation. This is the lesson of yesterday's effort. It feels like I did not get a lot done, but that, in itself, is a lie and misconception. Burst is my idea of control of image, but not the importance of being a well trained athlete of artistic activity. There is truth in falsity. After all, there are many artists I respect who have stated the idea that is fully becoming obvious to me: to depict the truth one must fabricate a falsehood that jars one into reality. Non-fiction is full of trickery and artifice.
Getting there is never simple and the face of the man in the left panel of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 is example. Yesterday his body thinned a bit and his face now appears to me to be a bit bulbous. So, bit by bit, this gets done. Next move is to appropriately thin his face to make it work with everything in this triptych. That will increase the slightly tilted thrust of his body, which will play nicely against the counter thrusts of the two women. I think when that change occurs I could stop. But I won't! I will examine every form and color. This painting is a lesson in discipline.
Yesterday's drawing was a nice surprise! Nothing much was done on the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014, but the drawing I found interesting in process and in completion. For the painting I had to jump into it the same way I would jump off a cliff sitting above a quarry pool. Being in front of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 is scary, like staring down at the pool from the top of a cliff. The time of the drop, between cliff top and water, is the most mysterious part of the journey, but it must be done. I know I can complete this thing, and that its finality will be rewarding, but the in-between time is enigmatically full of thought and confusion. That's why I should ignore it and simply take the plunge! I am not going to dwell any more on this this analogy because, if I do, it is simply an excuse not to do that which I must do, i.e. complete the damn thing!
Remarkable is yesterday's drawing. It surprised me. This drawing is indicative of a change in heart, intellect, and intuition. It took well over three-quarters of my studio time to complete, but was well worth it. I feel, at least right now, that this drawing is a landmark on my journey to full expression.
I do not want to distract you from yesterday's alteration in Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014. It too is important, not so much for it magnitude as for its subtleness. The quality of the activity was important. I worked on the woman's head in the right panel, and the stripes that are the wall behind her. Rather than sweeping changes I made subtle changes. There is a different type of control in such an activity. This vintage of activity is often seen in my drawing, but it has been difficult for me to bring it into my painting. Color and composition come first in my painting, and details second. However, this sort of detail oriented work is necessary if I am to achieve the high degree of expressive success I seek in my painting. |
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