 "Honorable Terms" (2021 No.7, state 1), oil on canvas, 52x56¾ 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)}  Drawing 07·12·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches There are many reasons people choose to make art. This new painting uses a quote from James E. Miller Jr. (1920–2010) to explain the reason I make art. One of Miller's ideas is quoted in the title of my new painting, "Honorable Terms" (2021 No.7). This idea fits me perfectly. I believe that "...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." Jame E. Miller, Jr. and I are simpatico in our fondness for certain figures in American Literature. Miller loved, enjoyed, and revered Walt Whitman and T.S. Eliot. I continue to read the same people Miller astutely critiqued. James E. Miller Jr. (1920–2010) James E. Miller was an American scholar and the Helen A. Regenstein Professor Emeritus of English Language and Literature at the University of Chicago, where he completed his graduate work, taught, and served as chairman of the English department. Miller specialized in American literature, he has published over twenty books and various articles on authors such as T. S. Eliot, Herman Melville, and Walt Whitman. His books include T. S. Eliot’s Personal Wasteland: Exorcism of the Demons, T. S. Eliot: The Making of an American Poet, The American Quest for a Supreme Fiction: Whitman’s Legacy in the Personal Epic, Leaves of Grass: America’s Lyric-Epic of Self and Democracy, F. Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and His Technique, Theory of Fiction: Henry James, and Quests Surd and Absurd: Essays in American Literature. He also has edited the anthology Heritage of American Literature, a Critical Guide to Leaves of Grass, and a Reader’s Guide to Herman Melville. His work on Eliot considers personal correspondence and the accounts of friends as well as an in-depth reading of Eliot’s early work up to and including The Waste Land. Miller also contends that though Eliot lived in England much of his life, he remained quintessentially an American writer. Miller's early work on J. D. Salinger was among the first work of its kind to be published. Throughout his career, Miller traveled and taught extensively in Japan, Australia, France, Italy, and elsewhere.
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 Drawing 06·08·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "The Opposite of Indifference" (2021 No.4, state 08), oil on canvas, 54x51 inches, {"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. Because of indifference one dies before one actually dies. To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that's being dead. His or her neighbor are of no consequence. Their hidden or visible anguish is of no interest. Indifference reduces the Other to an Abstraction." - Elie Wiesel, "US News & World Report" (27 October 1986)} Feeling and touching is a silent activity. Today I will be silent🤫
 Drawing 03·27·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Definitely not sure of this one. It fails to convince me of its efficacy and its intentions. Perhaps being subtle is not enough for me. I need a hammer to hit. I require a blast of feeling. I am desperate to understand without doubt. Perhaps others will see without my confusion. Stuff like this makes me question my own integrity and my insight. Do I know what I know? Do I know what I feel? Am I alone because I am confused?
 "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 01·03·2021 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.
 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.  "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. |
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