Sometimes I see my work as nothing new, nothing different, and stuck within the framework of historical standards in place 50 years ago. This is me at my most fearful. Yesterday's drawing brought this up. Competent, but unlike the work currently getting high notice by reviewers of Art in America and The New Yorker. Could be I need to change. Could be I am not open enough to my own instincts. Could be I am early on a road to personal definition. Could be I am right and the rest of the world needs to catch on.
Outside of my fears, let me tell you the way I see yesterday's drawing. I played with forms that are well known to all. I bent them till they filled the page with animation, big to little, normal to abnormal, light to dark, round to sharp, repetition of the similar versus contrast of the dissimilar. I enjoyed the labored process of seeking and finding. It was iterative: mark, erase, mark, erase, mark, et cetera. The problem was eventually solved. However, the final product does not grab the viewer with enough surprise as to engage on the deepest levels of emotion and intellect. Obviously, I need to think about my process and its outcomes. I want to engage my contemporaries. I want them to jump in, to partake in a conversation. First comes the engagement. Communication will follow. I need to work on this. Whoever thunk it? I am a continual skeptic, full of doubt. I doubted I would ever get here, near a conclusion to Painting-01·08·2016, even though I have been through this process hundreds of times. The basic rule: Hang in there and a conclusion will occur! I write this with caution, because there may be an additional touch or two coming, but nothing so serious as to alter the mood or composition of this painting. It is what it is.
Yesterday's drawings continued my query into both approach and subject matter. There is no finality in these drawings. If anything, drawings like these make me realize that I will never find finality. I continue to fail at perfect reproduction — this too will forever be a problem! In today's reproductions you can see that both drawings were unevenly lit: A shadowing effect occurs in the upper left. FYI: The drawing on the left was on slightly yellow paper, with a water mark visible in the lower left. Drawings from 11/18/2015, both pencil on paper, 16X20 inches Yesterday... Eyes have it! These drawings are representative of my current methodology. The surprise feels cavernous. I have turned-on a flashlight in a dark cavern. The light beam, radiating from my hand, is an apt analogy. The light goes just a little way, so discoveries take place with every step.
Invention, surprise, resurrection, Stanley Kubrick, Leo Tolstoy, Abbott and Costello. They all have given meaning to my life. Rumination and self-analysis has been a result. How do I get all of them in my art? There is no easy means or method, so I continue to plug away. Who's on first? The title of yesterday's blog post said, "This is What!", but Abbott said, "What is on second." The play of ins, outs, and betweens of my synapses must be leading me to comprehensive knowing, or not. The drawings shown today are me searching. This is not unusual, but I note it just the same. FYI: The complete dialogue of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" is transcribed at the end this post. Drawings from 11/11/2015, both pencil on paper, 16X20 inches Who's on First? by Abbott and Costello Intelligent is not enough. Inspired is not enough. Emotionally sensitive is not enough. To be a true work of art, to be relevant, a painting has to contain all of the mentioned qualities. Of course, this is true for drawings too. Drawings from 11/04/2015, both pencil on paper, 20X16 inches
Ridiculous or profound? The question has been asked by artists over time immemorial and not-so-immemorial. So here I am. Silly, I ask the same question. I am having fun! I am discovering without self-criticism. It is simple. It is happening. It is being. Yesterday's work exhibits a mixture of all my interests. Yes, some plebeian, some cultured, some sophisticated. Are we not all a mix of all of it? Stupid and low-brow is not beyond the most clever, nor is profundity beyond the witless. I accept, if I am to be all that I am, then I must allow all that I contain to spill out and come forth in my art. I am surprised. Is that not a sign of virtuousness? Drawings from 10/25/2015, all are 16X20 inches, pencil on paper
The problem is time and sunshine. They both need to be available. A lot is going on in my life. The intense demands on my limited time will continue for about another 10 days. Nothing to worry about, but it must happen, and much of it will be celebratory. I am being vague because this is not a blog about my personal life, but one about my art. Sometimes personal stuff and art-making does intersect, one can affect the other, but not this time. Yes, I will have less time to make art. I have written too much about this, so let me change subjects and write about art.
I continue to realize that form, the artifice of a third-dimension, is important to me. To me, there is something emotional about wandering around in the third-dimension, seeing the form, feeling the form, and watching one form interact and impinge upon other forms. Here today you see important indications of this. Yesterday's drawings sprung from the depths of my needs, but I am a neophyte in this area of structural emotions. I must do much more work. I need to unravel, and to separate, the truly expressive from the questionable, the inaccurate, the spurious, the erroneous, and the untrustworthy. Drawings from 9/6/2015, both pencil on paper, 20X16 inches I do not know who said it first, but at this juncture in my existence, I think this saying is trite because it is so obvious: "The one constant is change." The day after I wrote that I am abandoning references to real world images because they are not the driving force of my visual interest, look what appears! The drawing on the right (from yesterday) looks like a reference to a head with an eye! So what is happening? I think I am evaluating the force of my own visual language, looking for an expressive mode to communicate. There are no rules here. So representational references will probably come and go. More important is my seeking and my finding a means to visually communicate. It is like bending a note on a guitar in the search to emotionally engage the listener. Some players can do it, some can't. We know the difference. Is not simply explained. Critics do not try to explain. We all know that Jimi Hendrix could do it well. We all know there was just one Jimi Hendrix.
J.M.W. Turner, "Rain Steam and Speed", 1844 and "Intestinal Forms", 1990, both oil on canvas One hundred and forty-six years separate J.M.W. Turner's painting, "Rain Steam and Speed", from my painting, "Intestinal Forms". Despite the chronological distance between the two, I find similarity in the attitude in which they were created. Turner became more and more himself as he aged ("Rain Steam and Speed" is considered a "late" Turner, produced in 1844 when Turner was 69 years old). During my time away from making art I have been contemplating the manner in which I make art. Turner became himself by realizing, on canvas and paper, his deeply discerned intuitive knowing. I sometimes veer away from my own deeply intuitive knowing. I get distracted by searching for more knowledge. This quest for the ephemeral must end. When I return to painting I will follow the complexity of my internalized expressive self and make the art I was born and bred to make. This will be nurture and nature coming together, unified in my art. I admire Turner for accomplishing this in his lifetime. Other painters have also achieved this lofty success. Here I name a few other artists who I see as having succeeded: Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, Richard Diebenkorn, Alberto Giacometti, and James Ensor. These five are the ones that immediately come to mind, but of course there are others. The five I have named, along with J.M.W. Turner, are most on my mind as I seek my own redemption from the failure I witness when I seek knowledge, rather than perform my knowing.
Before I go, let me show you one of my favorite paintings by J.M.W. Turner, "Burning of the Houses of Parliament", 1834. This painting is also considered a "late" work of Turner's. "Burning of the Houses of Parliament" is much less abstract than "Rain Steam and Speed", and it was painted 10 years before "Rain Steam and Speed". It feels good to run into this without knowing where it's going. More precisely, I am following the lead of positive intuitive feedback. It is a feedback loop, not unlike one experienced with a microphone and an electrical audio amplifier. It is getting louder and louder, squealing in pleasure and pain. I am "getting real" with myself. If I have learned anything from my recent activity, it is that I enjoy moving my line across invented forms. If this is methodology, it is one of discovery of form through seek and find by line.
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April 2024
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