 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 7), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 02·23·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I wish it were easier. Always I wish for the same thing, easy. Never do I get it. This is work. This is effort. This is stepping strong, succeeding some of the time, failing often. The moments of success, at least the moments of "feeling successful," drive me to return and try again. While organizing the reproduction of yesterday's drawing for posting here, I felt failure. It did not sing the way I believed it had during yesterday's studio process. Did I go wrong? If my steps be honest and true, there is no wrong, there is just journey.
Yesterday's studio work fell short of my ambition. That's OK. It has informed me. I return today to make better.
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 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 5), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 01·30·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·30·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches There are many ways to approach the emotional energy in a rectangular work of art. I am trying one after the other, looking for robust reflection of my feelings. It is a game. I am challenging my ability to make real the stuff I feel and know. This is research. Try one thing, then another. Take a couple steps forward, then a failure. React to failure. Take another step, hopefully forward. With time and energy, I am getting closer. Success is translating my knowing, my feeling, into the physical image I am making. Look at yesterday's work. Each one is a step in the right direction. Are they fully successful? That feeling of being near, but incomplete, is the reason I return. The success I am experiencing is this: I feel closer to making real that which I know and feel.
 Drawing 01·15·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I found yesterday's first drawing uninteresting. I found yesterday's second drawing close to greatness. Both fail to complete. Both left mew with questions. The first a terrible amount of questions. The second, only a few. Today's drawing answers the questions posed by yesterday's second drawing. It pares down to the second drawing's essentials. I find today's drawing exceptional.
 Drawing 10·28·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·28·2020 No.2, pencil & graphite on paper, 16x20 inches I feel better about No.2, compared to No.1, when I look at these two drawings. My progress is slow. I am working toward truth, fullness, and efficacy in my art. In their making, yesterday's drawings felt stilted, as if I was a bit out of touch with my intentions. The authenticity of these, in terms of real self-expression, is in question. I call these two steps, these two drawings, indefinite. Sometimes my work is simply work. It is doing something I cannot define. As accomplishments, I do not feel good about these drawings. These drawings fill the paper, but I am unsure what I have learned in doing them. I do believe all work is good if greatly pursued. Therefore, these drawings must be good.
 Drawing 10·17·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·17·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I cannot stop myself from seeing necessary improvements in everything I do. I am obsessed by bettering my communication via my images. Both of these drawings are very good, but they also fail to fully realize the depth I know I can reach if I just keep reaching for it.
The top drawing would have been better with a simple twist of space, i.e., it would have been more potent if the meandering frontal form slide its top behind the lighter-valued snake-like form, but remaining in front of the pole-like form. I will fix that today. I will show it to you tomorrow. The bottom drawing will remain the same. It is a prelude to many more sliding-down-hill compositions, like landscapes in peril of disappearing into the sea.  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Deciphering truth is living with circumstances. These drawings are boldly without guile, thus bold questions that are answered as possibilities; there is success and there is failure. These are things unresolved. These drawings are clues to a better tomorrow. Here, in front of you, are emotional and intellectual questions. All of them are accepted as research. That is, here are serious steps toward a better and more lucid reflection upon myself and my self-expression. Come what may, these are exercises in behaving well.
 Drawing 10·14·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Problem solving is anything but straightforward. Some say "two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, et cetera..." I say, there is no such clarity in the stepping! When one has a major problem to solve it does not work so easily; the journey is not so decisively forward. I am facing a major problem. This is one that is not going away. I will forever be involved is seeking peace with myself, self-recognition of self-worthiness in the art I make. This is my struggle to solve self-revelation. Yesterday's drawing is a step. Everything I make is a step in my journey that I cannot leave. Looking at today's reproduction I see things I enjoy because they are totally me and mine. At the same time I see success I see failure. Clarity in vision that reflect everything I feel has been diluted by clarity of mark, stroke, value, and form. The technical aspects of making a drawing or painting are many, and must be mastered if one is to express fully and completely. The complexity of self-revelation I seek is gigantic. But, I believe I do not ask too much. I will achieve, I will approach my goal, I do feel it is in reach. This is happening with every step I take. My stepping in the right direction, and knowing it is the right direction, keeps me going. This self-inspiration imbues my relentlessness.
 "Your Decisions Matter" (2020 No.2, state 8), oil on canvas, 54x55½ inches {"It's essential that you believe as if your decisions matter... reality isn't important; what's important is your belief..." - Ted Chiang, "Exhalation", 2019}  Drawing 08·29·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Returning to the past and coming back again reminds there is no way home. Home is always and never. Only discomfort is available. Time future and time past are irrelevant to time present. Everything I make appears to be on the verge of becoming satisfactory. Satisfaction is impossible. I am compelled to return to action; my quest for fulfillment is endless. I want contentment; I want to make real the idea of who I am. Failure is the only option. Gratification is a carrot; I run but never obtain.
The works I show you today are steps in the right direction. My direction is clear. The endpoint, the goal, the destination, will never be obtained. Appeasement does not work either. Ask Winston Churchill not Neville Chamberlain.  Drawing 07·09·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 07·09·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I do not feel good about the drawings. Something is amiss. They do not fit me well; they feel like ill-fitting clothes; too tight here, too loose there. These are not images I wish to project when out and about. These drawings do not illustrate me!
What do I want? I want to simplify my simple self. I need to make clear my feelings and intellect. These drawing muddy the waters that are my living blood. I want to be deep arctic seawater on a clear blue-skied day: crystalline blue, full of life, cool, pleasant enough to be inviting, straight forward enough to be understandable in intellect and in emotion.  Drawing 05·17·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Great art is achieved more from continuity of effort than from talent. I have experienced many talented artists, but only a few achieve great art. Achievement of greatness happens because the route to success is long in thought, long in trial and error, long in failure, sporadic with the exhilaration of success. The drawing shown today is too complex for me. Better were the drawings that were shown in yesterday's blog post. There is high exhibition of talent in the drawing I show today, but it does not stimulate viewer engagement; it requires too much from the viewer, just as it required too much for me to make it real. It does exhibit great talent in drawing; space, form, light, compositional integrity, they are all present. This drawing fails because it lacks immediacy of purpose, which means it lacks immediacy of viewer involvement. I will require a lot of time, energy, and great effort to make real the great art I envision. I am committed to the long run.
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February 2021
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