 "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 4), oil on canvas, 56x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)}  Drawing 04·07·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am using a sketchbook again. You will not see it here because it is sketch notes to myself. It is teaching me basic needs. It is teaching me the simplicity of vision. I do need to change directions. I do need to go short and sweet. My work, too often, becomes complex. Too often I have solved problems by adding to complexity, rather than paring down to simple messaging. Yesterday's drawing exhibits my confusion. It has duplicity, and self awareness. Yesterday's drawing wants to go simple, but ends with a complexity of forms. Number and kinds of forms can distract. Going toward fewer forms is not necessarily going too little. There are all kind is of ways of making simplicity, sparsity of forms, into grand statements, ones filled with emotion and meaning. I am on the road to blunt and purposeful art. Keeping ideas alive, minute by insightful minute, will help. This is the reason for carrying a sketchbook, everywhere and always. I often awake with insights. My sketchbook was on my bedstead last night. This morning it was the first thing I picked up.
Working toward simplicity is necessary. That is happening in the painting, "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It".
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 Drawing 01·26·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·26·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Understanding is slow to form, but when understanding is accomplished, it is resilient, and consistent. My favorite painting of Leonardo da Vinci's is his unfinished St. Jerome. As with all things I love at first sight, I did not immediately comprehend the reason for my instantaneous love. It is the overall organization of the canvas I relish so much. Here is an incomplete list of reasons for my visceral enjoyment of St. Jerome: (1) the rotation of lion's tail mimicking the overall rotational dialogue of the entire image, (2) the intriguing negative space between Jerome and the lion, (3) the thrust of Jerome's outstretched arm being parallel to the lion's torso, (4) the semi-circle of the lion's mouth ensuring consistency in rotation, scaled small to large, (5) all the rotation is in contrast to the central pin of the composition, firmly set by the vertical thrust of the St. Jerome's right leg. I enjoy this image deeply, relentlessly, with great satisfaction. My visceral connection, both emotional and intellectual, to Leonardo's St. Jerome is because of its compositional structure. Acknowledging Leonardo's accomplishment is an important insight in my journey to making my own work more satisfying. I can draw form as will as Leonardo, but I continue to labor to fully comprehend compositional structure. I want my art to be fully satisfying, intellectually and emotionally satisfying. I want my viewers to fall in love with my works of art at first sight, just as I did with the painting St. Jerome. Yesterday's drawings are efforts in the right direction, toward full compositional satisfaction.  Leonardo da Vinci, "St. Jerome", oil on canvas, 73.5 x 103 cm, 1480  Drawing 01·13·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches What am I doing? I am looking carefully at the space between the lines, the negative space. I am filling the page with carefully considered forms, forms created by pencil lines. These lines, inherently, leave gaps between one another. These gaps are emotional spaces, ones that create light and darkness, good and evil. My current research is investigation into the emotional satisfaction, personal self-expression, that I may obtain from the space between the lines.
 Drawing 01·09·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches There is something special about this drawing. Excellent Drawing! Perhaps it is its robust use of the page, its vibrant use of the negative space, its dramatic contrasts in forms and in value. Whatever it is, it is definitely another step forward.
 Drawing 12·27·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Looking for nirvana never fails to fail. This drawing is a start in the right direction. Seek and I shall find. This drawing finds merit in directness coupled with complexity. Here are large individual forms, within the large forms complexity is found. This is not the perfect accomplishment. It is a finding; not conclusive, but a verdict of merit that is preparation for my next step. I received a gift of a calendar for 2021. It contains 365 art images, mostly paintings. Its cover shows Vincent Van Gogh's Still Life with Irises (one of Vincent's greatest masterpieces, completed in the last year of his life, 1890). You see one of my inspirations in this painting. Vincent used simple color, simple large forms, but then playfully created a complexity of lines, shapes, and value contrast within the irises. Van Gogh's Still Life with Irises is satisfying on many levels. I absolutely adore this painting. It is a treasured lesson in emotional truth telling.  Vincent Van Gogh, "Still Life with Irises", oil on canvas, 92x73.5 cm, 1890  "Stubborn & Egotistical" (2020 No.4, state 5), oil on canvas, 64½x55 inches {"If we've learned anything from the best-selling 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' children's book series, it's that those who see themselves surrounded by idiots are usually idiots themselves." -Jakob Augstein, "Stubborn and Egotistical" (Spiegel Online, 3/25/2013)}  Drawing 12·12·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Back, forth, up, down, try this, then that, then this again... do it over and over until it is as good as I can perceive at the moment of perception. After some time alone, in dreams and elsewhere, more knowledge becomes apparent. With more knowledge I am able to proceed, find better solutions. This is the process of making art. The results are a result of testing. Failure has happpened; there has been some success too!
In the work I show today you can see a common theme. These are me seeking profoundly voluminous forms, ones that have bulk and weight.  Drawing 12·11·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing. This one is not about yesterday. Of course, it looks back and it looks forward, but it is really about now. Always, I wonder about contrast is scale, contrast in shape and form, contrast in value. This one researches all of that, and more. This play on contrast is an emotional play. It engages the viewer in discord and sedition. It asks for rebellion. It requests one to accept something completely different. It is a rabble on the left impinging on the simple and pure on the right. Who wins this fomentation of discontent? If it works well, you and I see and understand more deeply than before our encounter with this drawing.
 Drawing 09·22·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·22·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·22·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Everything is on the line, everything is concerned with the impact of form & line & shadow & smudge & composition & light. Everything is more clear to me. These drawings are more and many; they are better to me. These drawings are beginnings, true steps in the right direction. They are closer to being myself.
The last drawing is incomplete.  Drawing 08·30·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Adolph Gottlieb's works have always fascinated me. I know why. I am struggling fro self-expressive potency; my images never fully satisfy me. Gottlieb's works use a simple formula, over and over. Gottlieb uses a round, cleanly organized shape in contrast to an explosive, jumbled shape; in addition, his images exude positive-shape intensity against supportive, residual negative space. The positive shapes are rich, the negative space lends them fierce interest. This contrast, of shapes and space, sings a potent, emotional message. I do not make flat shapes. My complex, three-dimensional forms have greater opportunity to sing emotions than do Gottlieb's simple, flat shapes. I will stay my course. Gottlieb's simple formula educates; his formula lends charge to visual imagery; his exude husky, emotional responses. In this regard, I believe I can go further than Gottlieb. Adolf Gottlieb's limited formula has instructed me; simple contrast has great possibilities; obtaining more accurate self-expression is possible!  Adolph Gottlieb, "Transfiguration III", oil on canvas, 90x60⅛ inches, 1958  Drawing 08·16·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Preparing just one painting for exhibition takes an enormous amount of time; this distracts from my preferred endeavors. Of course I should promote my work! Yesterday I had time to finish a drawing; so nice! I completed a drawing begun on August 16. Today, however, I must begin to prepare the PechaKucha requested by Silvermine Galley for their 70th Annual A-ONE Exhibition, opening September 5. "Pecha Kucha" is Japanese for "chit chat". I am tasked with making a 20 slide presentation of my life and work, also with a look into my studio workspace. A PechaKucha runs quickly: 20 images, each with a 20 second VoiceOver. I will post a link here when the PechaKucha is complete.
The drawing I show today is research into my interest in movement. I wish to engage the viewer in multiple ways, but here I concentrate on relentless compositional dynamism. This internal image energy is being added to my fascinations with form, light, and three-dimensional space. |
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April 2021
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