 Drawing 01·31·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9, state 8), oil on canvas, 54x36 inches {"Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.... an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." -Saul Bellow, "Writers at Work: Third Series", 1967} I will not relent. This is poetry. As poet I continually revisit, alter the script yet conserve the basic idea; My process is consistent enhancement of meaning. That is my job. This work of mine will not become genre, nor will it become extinct. Like Rotrouenge, it is lyrical and has repeated elements that may be called refrains. However, I believe in contrast; the repetition of marks and/or forms is contrasted against the entirety. I also believe my work is mostly similar to Rotrouenge because "...the original genre may have lost its distinct identity." Yesterday I revisited the painting "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9). Today I show state 8. It is now essentially complete, yet requires a once-over to affirm its completion. Yesterday's drawing continues my research into hard versus rounded forms. Rotrouenge (from Wikipedia)
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 Drawing 01·30·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Insight comes in many varieties. Sometimes it is self-induced. Often it occurs because I see something in my environment that indicates there is a better way. My environment includes people and books and history and magazines and blogs and reproductions of art and memories of the art I love. The drawing I show today is me reacting to the forms in my painting "The Doctrine of Liberty". This drawing is insightful. It occurred because I was seeking a means to muster maximum strength from the forms in "The Doctrine of Liberty" — particularly the major letter-G-like form in the left half. Yesterday's blog post referred to Pablo Picasso. Picasso once remarked that he had tried so many disparate means to make a painting that generations of artists would use his loose ends. This has happened to me. Yesterday I showed Picasso's painting "Figures at the Seaside". In it the forms are not simply rounded, as some of my larger forms tend to be; the forms in "Figures at the Seaside" have hard, soft, and rounded edges. This painting gave me insight, as do other works by Picasso that deal with abstract forms that resemble the kind of forms I tend to generate. You can see it in the drawing I show you today. Below I attach a couple other works by Picasso that investigate the means to animate three-dimensional forms.  Pablo Picasso, "Seated Bather on the Beach", oil on canvas, 163x129.5 cm, 1929  Pablo Picasso, "Bather", 1929  Drawing 01·15·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Rules have been made because history has been made. I grew up with intense interest in visual arts, especially painting and drawing, I studied art history. I looked for models. I looked for information. I gathered it, assiduously and thoroughly. Here I am, playing differently than any model I have ever seen in art history, or in contemporary art. I am myself. Yet, I have not rid myself of the laws I learned from art history and from art school studies. Yesterday's drawing is amazing in its play with form, composition, mark-making, value-contrast, atmospheric and local effects; but it has a deep foundation in the stuff that came before. Is this good or bad? That is a question I continue to answer. This is the process! I have established myself as myself. Now I question the validity of my answers. I am wondering, "Is this drawing remarkable because it plays with rules I invented myself?" OR "Is this drawing just another variation on the rules I have been given by those who made art before me?" Question #2: "Does it matter?" I need to know. Thus I proceed.
 Drawing 12·06·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Three million strokes and counting.... Yesterday's drawing celebrates the marking of a white piece of paper with graphite from a pencil. Later yesterday, as I rested reading in my living room, my arm let me know it had been taxed. I had been enjoying finding forms, finding surface, finding space, finding light, and finding composition! This simultaneity-filled activity is a celebration of mindfulness. The more I do it the longer I can sustain it! This is "practice", as defined by veteran meditators. The Buddha would be proud of me! I have not obtained Buddhahood, but I am moving in that direction. Shravasti Dhammika, a Theravada monk, writes:  Drawing 11·14·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Approach can swing from fully intellectual to fully emotional. The sweet-spot must be somewhere in-between. The sweet-spot is not-too-soft, not-too-hard, but just-right; yes it is something Goldilocks would enjoy!
Yesterday's drawing consumed my entire studio time. That drawing is intricate and it is thoughtful, but it felt dry in-the-making. This drawing was born mostly from my intellect and less from my emotions. Does it fail the viewer because it is not fully human? This is my worry. Living well, making art well, both are not fully intellectual nor fully emotional. Art, if done well, contains a balance of intellect and emotion. So how do I do this in a way that fully represents me? Perhaps, if this drawing were a bit different it would be more emotionally successful. For instance, if the form on the bottom right were larger, would its contrast create emotional stress through a dramatic emotional juxtaposition of forms? Instead it is so well balanced as to be comfortably numb. I do not want to represent this drawing as poor, or inadequate. It is an excellent drawing; but it just does not speak with a striking amount emotional energy. I want more. OK, I know how to put together a nicely balanced composition, one that is intellectually satisfying. Again; I want more! I want to see the stresses of existence in my art; the push and pull between my intellect and my emotions. The quest is truth and representation of the authentic consequence of living. I am getting closer. Writing, as I am today, is a call for my instigating a great effort to move closer to full satisfaction, me delivering a performance that fully and completely represents all I feel and know. (Beethoven's Ninth Symphony come to mind!)  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 19), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 10·27·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Jumping into a pit of obstacles, hazards and rewards, is the means to success in sport and in art-making. I found I can act well when challenged by multiple possibilities, some leading to success, some leading to failure. This is problem solving. This is the activity of art-making. This is the activity of sport. Art is engineering and athletics combined. It is physical, and it is mental. Yesterday I leaped into a drawing. For a while I felt lost. I had created many possibilities. For a while it felt confusing and chaotic. There were moments when I thought it best to abandon the drawing. I did not. I was rewarded. I found order within the chaos I had launched. This success by challenge is a great thing; it brings vitality. If the result is success, then trust in one's abilities are bolstered. More challenge will follow. It is a practice I will continue.
Burnt Norton is now very close to complete. The tweak is on! Burnt Norton shall now be completed with minor alterations in color, line, and form.  Drawing 09·22·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One more worry: Is my work too complicated, too subtle? Is it beyond the grasp of most viewers? I see visual connections across wide expanses of canvas and paper. I do not think I am deluding myself. Yesterday's drawing does work well. There is a solid core, there are rhythms and rhymes, there is movement and motion, there is value contrast, there are a large variety of forms, there is light, there is structural integrity. So, why is it not a hit? I believe it does hit well. Then why are viewers not begging that it be put in public venues? What are they not begging to see it up close and personal? Art that speaks truth should be seen. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh wondered the same.
In yesterday's blog I quoted a New York Times article from March 22, 1992. The following paragraph, from the same article, is relevant to my worries of today: "Cezanne's career might have been as grim as Van Gogh's -- and as short -- had he not been the son of a banker and, ultimately, his heir. As it is, his progress from clumsy Expressionism to a sublime fusion of the monumental and the ethereal has attracted scholars from Roger Fry to Meyer Schapiro and John Rewald." (from the New York Times article, ART; How Cezanne Evokes a Bach Fugue, published March 22, 1992)  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 2), oil on canvas, 55.5x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 09·11·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am all over this. Incredible to me, the creator, this game of making-art is in control. My knowledge can be plucked from everywhere; it surrounds me; my brain is on fire; omnipresent are ideas that can be identified as true. This does not make my task faster, easier. In fact the road just got bumpier; my speed has slowed because there is so much I can do with every mark I make. It is much more than marks. It is composition and form and light and color and repetition and pattern et cetera et cetera. Crazy full of possibilities but also crazy specific with solutions that actually make sense. Solutions that speak truly, speak authentically, are several and few. Finding them is my task.
 Drawing 07·26·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It is simply a great drawing. You have to see it to believe it! My work is hitting harder in all the ways art should hit a viewer. Yesterday's drawing is substantive; emotive in texture, emotive in form, emotive in composition, emotive in light and in darkness. One dictionary definition of texture is "the character or appearance of a fabric as determined by the arrangement and thickness of its threads." This happens in Drawing 07·26·2018, except the threads are replaced with pencil marks. Wow & Zow! Sticking with it makes sense. Even the most unlikely of avenues, when followed with ardor and passion, result in excellent results. I quote again Oliver Wendall Holmes: "Every calling is great when greatly pursued."
 "Along for the Ride" (2018 No.7, state 2), oil on canvas, 57.5x49.5 inches) {"The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful consideration, getting them wrong again. That's how we know we're alive: we're wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that — well, lucky you." - Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"}  Drawing 07·24·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches In my previous blog post I wrote about being wrong. I wrote how important it is to be wrong; being wrong is the most human quality. If you missed this idea it is because you did not fully read the title caption beneath the painting Along for the Ride, which yesterday hit state 2. It is Philip Roth who made this lucid; In his novel, American Pastoral, Philip Roth wrote, "The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It's getting them wrong that is living." This wrongness applies to art-making too. Wrongness is living art; Wrongness is the inspiration that drives art-making. There would never be a second painting if an artist got it right the first time. Never ridicule any painting; never ridicule any piece of art. All art is authentically human. The best art, I agree, universally connects us.
The painting Along for the Ride excites me. I will enthusiastically work on it again today. Yesterday's drawing is another step forward in my search to find a way to connect everything within a composition: every point, every mark, every form. |
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