Category: Feeling

Am I Right? Am I Wrong?

1/4/2021

Drawing 01·03·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Drawing 01·03·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Right my wrong is process. If I do not try I do not fail, nor do I succeed. I sometimes deluge my drawings with lines and forms. I am looking for directness, direct to self-expression. I come closer to right if I allow myself to feel deeply the appearing image. It is attention that is the problem. Mindfulness is not easily sustained. These two drawings appeared more clearly than those when I muck my feelings by replacing them with muddled technical searches, i.e., looking for compositional soundness, or whatever. These two drawings simply said "yes" to my feelings; I felt my way through them as I was making them. Success is being present, not looking back. Looking at a drawing is looking back, but if executed in mindful clarity it is a revisit to self-expression that is permanent.

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Inhalation before Blow Out

7/31/2020

Drawing 07·30·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Drawing 07·30·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

I will paint today. Unfortunately, the two spaces on my work wall which are available for painting are occupied. Both paintings on the work wall require completion. So, that is today's task. I am inhaling, taking in my knowledge; I feel ready to burst; I need to begin a new painting! The practicality of finishing restricts me; I will hold my breathe, finish at least one of the two paintings on my work wall, then I will blow out strongly; out will come a new painting. The new painting will represent my acquisition of understanding, which (right now) feels very broad, very strong, and very full.

Yesterday's drawings are grandly excellent. I know this. I feel this. Yesterday's drawings exhibit great maturity. I am ready to paint with great maturity. Maturity to me means I know what I am, who I am. It is time to express myself with this newest of feelings.

Knowledge & Power

6/1/2020

"Amidst a Falling World" (2020 No.3, state 07), oil on canvas, 66¼x55½ inches {"Should the whole frame of nature around him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace (65-8BC), "Odes", book 3, no.4, I.52)}

Drawing 05·31·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

It can get very confusing. Knowledge is a strong, but power can distort possibilities. If power be fully followed, the consequences may not fall comfortably; the result may be incorrectly conceived. Failure occurs because power was allowed to precede knowledge; power has the ability to push aside a level-headed approach, thus diminishing the ability to secure a well measured result. Great art is balanced by perspicuity. With this I look at yesterday's work. I am insecure with it. The painting feels unfinished, not forceful enough; the drawing is a risk in value contrast and form contrast. Do they work well? Are they successful in engaging thought and feeling? I must think about this; both these works make me nervous. Or, is my nervousness merely a sign of the times I am living within?

Note on reproduction: Today's reproduction fails to accurately represent yesterday's actual drawing. The more a work of art relies upon subtlety to convey its ideas and emotions, the more the reproduction of it fails to impress.

Am I Right? Am I Wrong?

Inhalation before Blow Out

Knowledge & Power

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