 "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 16), oil on canvas, 60x33 inches {"And I want to know the same thing everyone wants to know, how it going to end? Drag your wagon and your plow over the bones of the dead out among the roses and the weeds. You can never go back, and the answer is no, and wishing for it only makes it bleed." -Tom Waits, song lyric} How's It Gonna End has ended! Today you see its 16th state. This wondrous solution occurred as much in my mind as on canvas. The last two months of my studio life has been more about preparing works for exhibition than making work. All the while I was doing other stuff the painting How's It Gonna End sat there on the work-wall. I saw it every day. Somedays I looked hard, other days I did not pay attention. Slowly I deciphered its need. It wanted to be resolved through simplicity. The day came when I needed to do it. The true solution came from my working the canvas itself. I eliminated some of it, then I exaggerated what was already there. Bingo! Done!
The inflection point came when I knew all is prepared for my exhibitions. I relaxed. The solution to How's It Gonna End came quickly and easily. Suddenly I feel in control of my artistic life again. More good things will come soon... after I deliver my works to Bromfield Gallery on Monday June 3.
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 Drawing 05·28·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Nothing feels easy right now. I am five days away from delivering my art to Bromfield Gallery. I am trying to continue being an active, creative artist. Distractions due to assembling an exhibition dominate my time. There are logistics (making sure timing of everything works wells, from truck rental to delivery and hanging), to framing, to price list preparation, to final touches on canvases. In the midst of all these practical concerns I made this drawing. The distractions slowed this drawing's creation to three days. Does creating over an extended time period diminish spontaneity? Not sure, but it is a good drawing. Will it appear in my Bromfield show? Perhaps it will.
 Drawing 05·23·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday's drawing centered itself with three various forms; you can follow them up its center. The three-forms culminate in the blimp-like object, which is largest of the three. My struggle to make this drawing took two days despite my marking it as yesterday's. It is about me. The struggle to make it is me. It started simple; it became dark and questioning. This drawing illustrates insistent centering. That is me. I am trying to find a way to center myself as I move through the muck; the muck that is practicality. I am preparing for my Bromfield Gallery Exhibition (paintings & drawing to be delivered June 3). This preparation distracts me from the impetus of my art, i.e., self-discovery.
 Drawing 05·21·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My major artistic struggle right now is staying open to instinctive possibilities. If I touch success I discover grandness of light on forms and between forms. My effort is a struggle for enlightenment. I am working to be fully aware of everything, from the emotional potency of negative space to the emotional potency of forms and light. A piece a paper is an artifice of light, form, and negative space, but it absolutely is not an artifice of my personal awareness. My art measures me. It slams me up against my knowing. I am trying with all I have to stay so open as to fully know success and failure. This is a blunt process. I walk away from each art-making event knowing the depth of my comprehension, as well as the limits of my seeing, my knowing, my feeling. Yesterday's drawing was just one more step along this path, my journey in quest of light and enlightenment.
 Drawing 05·07·2019, pencil on paper, 16 x20 inches As wonderful as this drawing is, it is NOT all I want. I have been looking; I have been staring at my past drawings. I look, then pick out the ones I find most appealing. The more insistent the 3D spatial introduction the more I feel their emotive power. Today I will make an effort to draw from this need of mine. The 3D space you see in yesterday's drawing is minimal, it is not as robustly 3D-animated as I wish. I want the viewer to be pulled in; I want the viewer to drop into a place filled with interesting and emotive forms. The journey I am on to satisfy this need of mine is endless, but it is my journey.
 Drawing 05·01·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday it felt good to be back; I am making art! I felt insight and glory. Nice! This is the stuff I was born to do! That said, I need to prepare to deliver paintings and drawings to Bromfield Gallery in Boston, due June 3. I cannot rest. I must make both art and frames.
Yesterday's drawing examines my recent interests and ideas. It has a central pyramid and two side panels. This frontal design invites the viewer to enter. Then the wandering begins. Consequently it is a highly successful drawing. As I said earlier, it is good to be back!!!  Drawing 04·04·2019 (state 1), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches As good as yesterday's drawing is, I believe it can be better. There is a thrust of darkness that begins in the upper middle and moves diagonally to the lower portion of this drawing. The clarity of this thrust gets a bit vague in the lower portion of the the drawing. I believe, if I enhance this movement it will enhance the drawing. The proof will come in the doing. I will post its final state tomorrow.
FYI: I have been busy framing works for the first of my Spring/Summer exhibitions. I deliver works to AVA Gallery (Lebanon, NH) on April 26 (opening on May 10). I will neglect my new paintings till the older paintings are framed, cleaned-up, varnished, ready to go to AVA. I will continue to make drawings. Making Art is ingrained in me, rewarding to me as necessary to problem solving life and living. Art to me is an indicator of Life; I cannot stop doing it. I believe my recent drawings are excellent, perhaps the best I have ever done. This reward of quality keeps me involved, day by day, relentlessly.  Drawing 03·28·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday's studio session was a lot of me sitting and observing. Surprised I was at my having ignored the potency of negative space. I sometimes feel awash is quandary. Why did I so actively attack the positive forms as animators of my images? Why did I not look ardently at negative space as animator? I picked up a few books; I looked at images of works from de Kooning to Guston to Matisse. All of these artists, like me, tend to clog their canvases with marks, making negative space look like an afterthought. Their drawings, however, are different. Negative space is more important. (See drawings by these artists, below.) Today, I offer you a drawing of mine (made yesterday). In it I use negative space effectively. Learning never ceases. Learning sometimes leaves me with a feeling of loss; Sometimes it hurts! Why did it take me so long, some many drawings, so many paintings, to realize the great emotional and intellectual value of negative space?  Willem de Kooning, "Untitled", charcoal on paper, 1966  Philip Guston, "Web", India Ink on Paper, 1975  Henri Matisse, "Lydia with Her Hair in a Net", pencil on paper, 1939  Drawing 03·06·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches You know it when you see it! I knew it when I was doing it! This drawing is a jump in expression of knowledge and emotions. It fits me like a correctly sized glove. It is a hallmark of great things to come. Am I gushing too much? Methinks "No!"
 "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 8), oil on canvas, 59.5x32 inches {"Life is sweet at the edge of a razor; And down in the front row of an old picture show the old man is asleep as the credits start to roll. And I want to know, the same thing everyone wants to know, how's it going to end?" -Tom Waits}  Drawing 03·05·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches When Alberto Giacometti reached maturity he perceived his struggle as no longer a problem of creation, but one of destruction. His struggle was one for purity and perfection. Giacometti commented his sculptures often became so thin that one more swipe with the scalpel would reduce them to dust. I paraphrase, but the meaning is clear. I have reached a point in my art-making which worries me. Purity and perfection are enemies as well as a friends. They drive me, but they also force me to ask these questions: Will I always fail? Will striving for perfection not allow me to know a work is complete? With each work I am concerned I will be left with only a confused mess. This struggle is artificial. I am alive and well. I will not allow myself to be pulled astray. My energy is relentlessly focused on accomplishing the correct image. Each work is different.
Yesterday's drawing appears with too many rounded forms. It is shallow with little three-dimensional animation. I despaired while making it. In this drawing I had pulled away from my recent idea that three-dimensional contrast is extremely important to my expression. Today is new day. Today I make a new drawing. I will react to my concerns, the problems I see in yesterday's drawing. Yesterday I left the studio worried about the painting "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2). I wondered if yesterday's vast reworking of this painting had gone well. Looking at its reproduction this morning, I believe it did move in a good direction. Phew! |
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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
June 2019
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