 "Silence, Exile, and Cunning" (2022 No.1, state 12), oil on canvas, 48x57 inches, {"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning." - James Joyce (1882-1941), "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916)} This is better than Cherry Pie. I am taking myself to heart; this means I am accepting, I am embracing my whims, my frailty, my inconsistencies, my worries, my propensities, my failures, and my successes, This is not easy for me. I am a colossally confusing entity. I want, I need, I chase, I emote. Taken as a package, I am not easy to manage. It is not easy to get along with myself. I am often uncomfortable; I failure often, which is difficult to accept. My successes must be recognized. I am learning to recognize my successes as important documents, notes to myself. These notes enumerate things important to embrace, to make mine. My acceptance of successes will lead me past my failures. I am on a journey to better, more righteous fields.
Yesterday I took "Silence, Exile, and Cunning” a big step toward acceptance of me. I hung in there through many small failures on my journey to make it more mine, to make it succeed for me.  Drawing 01·14·2022, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I fail to do everything I am capable of doing when optimism gets in my way. This drawing, from yesterday, begun in an optimistic high, fails to do all I am capable of doing. I want more spatial depth. This drawing's major, slithering form fails to be all it might have been. I am back at it today, albeit less optimistic. I hope my lack of optimism is a good for my Art.
 "Tonstant Weader Fwowed Up" (2021 No.10, state 6), oil on canvas, 56x62¼ inches, {"And it is that word 'hummy', my darlings, that marks the first place in 'The House at Pooh Corner' at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up." - Dorothy Parker (1893-1967), in "The New Yorker", 20 October 1928, reviewed by Dorothy Parker as "Constant Reader"} I thought I made some progress, now I see it is not enough. Woe is me. Far to go before I sleep.
 Drawing 10·30·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Two questions are always there. When is there enough Information? When is there too much information? Every work I make asks these questions. Some get away from me; I answer nothing. Those that get away indicate I failed to understand. I fail to see. I have failed to be fully present, fully reflective, fully decisive. Yesterday I was filled with decisiveness. Did I succeed? Did I answer my questions. This morning I am uneasy. I look. I do not know. I cannot decide.
 Drawing 10·08·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·09·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches When does seeing become believing? For me, not soon, perhaps never, perhaps now. I have contempt for my own work. When concluded it never fully satisfies. I doubt success, so I do more. In doing I appreciate my own ability to see and feel my way to sense and sensibility. In the conclusion I find no happiness. I like these drawings, I doubt these drawings. Therefore I return to make more.
 Drawing 08·15·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Honorable Terms" (2021 No.7, state 10), oil on canvas, 52x59⅞ inches, {"The roots of reason are imbedded in feelings — feelings that have formed and accumulated and developed over a lifetime of personality-shaping. These feelings are not a source of weakness but a resource of strength. They are not there for occasional using but are inescapable. To know what we think, we must know how we feel. It is feeling that shapes belief and forms opinion. It is feeling that directs the strategy of argument. It is our feelings, then, with which we must come to honorable terms." - James E. Miller, Jr., "Word, Self, Reality: The Rhetoric of Imagination" (1972)} You have to see it to believe it. Reproduction does, indeed, suck. Reproduction cannot represent the fine quality of a fine work of art. The more nuanced my work becomes the more my effort at adequate reproduction fails. The drawing I show you today took me three days to complete. That is long time for me. It is a complex drawing; it is subtle and nuanced. The painting, "Honorable Terms", has not changed since last I showed it here. I photographed "Honorable Terms" a second time, it remains in state 10. This reproduction of "Honorable Terms" is much better than last I showed here.
 "Gonna Speak to the Crowd" (2021 No.5, state 9), oil on canvas, 62¾x57⅜ inches, {"I'm gonna spare the defeated — I'm gonna speak to the crowd. I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the crowd. I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered. I'm gonna tame the proud." - Bob Dylan, "Lonesome Day Blues" (2001)} This art-making is a dirty, messy, destructive/constructive process. The painting, "Gonna Speak to the Crowd", is moving between destruction and construction. It ain't over yet. The process has been dramatic, dynamic, revelatory. More will come. I will continue to solve the mystery that is me. I am foolish, yet I do recognize truth when I see it. I am doing enormous work by seeking truth through the process of destroying falsehoods. Simultaneously I am feeling foolish and intelligent. Why did I create complexity that was obviously falderal? I watched myself bending this thing toward NOT speaking to the crowd. How did I allow myself to stray far away from truth telling? I can look back because I post every state of a painting on this blog; I see I lazily followed a path of squiggle and squabble. Did I believe if I did enough mark-making I would find my way? I did delude myself. I can't solve my personal mystery by being indolent about the facts. I must be strong, I must pull upon my heart strings till they yell, "Yes, this is the proper way toward truthful self-expression.
 Drawing 04·21·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·21·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am unable to convince myself these drawings are good. They are steps, true steps, but not good enough for cheer or bravado. They are just vanilla envelopes containing honest efforts in the right direction. I am happy for what they are. I feel angst because they fail to fully satisfy. I want more. I want deeper. I want more profoundly me.
 Drawing 04·16·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 04·16·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I can feel it in my bones; the strong desire to make real my feelings. Yesterday I felt incapable of getting there. I work, I work, I move an inch or two, but not all the way. Yesterday I was disgusted with my failure. Other days I am elated because I moved an inch toward success. Real success is impossible. Conundrum grows as understanding grows. A wealth of comprehension merely brings knowledge of incomplete success. Full expression will never be reached because every new, every true idea brings knowledge of ideas unfulfilled.
Yes, yesterday's drawing are good ones. I do not care. I care to go back in, to seek another inch in my quest toward fulfillment of self-expression.  "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 8), oil on canvas, 49¾ x58½ inches {We only live between before we are and what we were. In the lost negative you exist... Three ages in a flash: the same child in the same picture, he, I, you..." - Robert Lowell, "For Sheridan"}  Drawing 03·28·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I wish for the best, but I never get it. So, I wish you the best, I hope you get there. I am doomed to fail. That's why I return for another day, another try. Achieving the best is impossible. I am constantly striving to get there. Along the way I do good works. That is me, the moral person in action. It is the moral of my story. It is the moral imbedded in each artwork I make.
Yesterday's work was good, very good. My understanding is creeping toward more depth, more exhibition of knowledge and knowing. Yesterday's drawing, and painting, animate their spaces as a good painting and a good drawing should. Both artworks sit comfortably in front of us, their viewers. I do feel a sense of achievement. Am I satisfied. No way! |
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June 2022
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