 Drawing 03·18·2020, graphite on paper, 16x20 inches I had intended to go back today, into the studio, finish this drawing. This drawing is not dated, nor signed (it was made yesterday). Looking at this drawing this morning, I call it done. There is a freeform play about it; I enjoy it, so I will accept it.
Today will be my first full day in the studio in quite a while. The Coronavirus outbreak has distracted me for many reasons. Today I feel fine. All my preparations, food, family, and friends, financial and shelter, feel comfortable. I feel a sense of security in this topsy-turvy world of disease and political missteps. This may not last. I will grab it while I can. I am off to my studio as soon as I place the period on this sentence.
0 Comments
 Drawing 03·15·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches There is a very important take-away to the botched response by the Republican political leaders to all things present tense. Currently they have botched the response to the Coronavirus outbreak. The Republicans leading this country behave like Bullies on a playground; always present tense, always self-centered; they are no good at planning ahead; To Republicans, power now is more important than a future that is secure, healthy, and economically sound. Led by their leader, they call-out derogatory names at those who plan ahead; they derogatorily label ideas as nonsense if those ideas differ from Republican policies; Republicans ideas must immediately ingratiate and benefit Republicans. Republicans choose not to plan ahead. They doubt Global Warming is occurring. They think tax cuts fix economic problems. Earlier this year their leader said the Covid-19 outbreak would "simply go away" and "don't worry." Some may call such bullying "street smarts"; actually it is idiotic planning. The earth is warming; a catastrophe is coming if we do not immediately do something to mitigate Global Warming. Taxes have been so drastically reduced on corporations, and the rich, that our National Deficit is blooming to amazing proportions versus our GDP; future generations will pay for the Republicans lining their pockets with money from their huge tax cuts. And now, in the current moment, we are paying with our health and our lives; the Republican Administration fired the National Pandemic Response Team the day after they met to discuss preparedness for the next Pandemic; this happened in 2018, in Atlanta GA, at the Center for Disease Control (they were there at a conference organized to coincide with the 100th Anniversary of the 1918 Flu Pandemic).
My art is one of planning. Yes, I work in the moment. I make the best art I can make in any given moment; I always utilize my total body of knowledge. My plan is expansion of my consciousness; day by day I work. I am getting better. I am getting better because I accept reality, I accept my failures, I accept my successes; I build better stuff through reflection upon my successes and my failures. The drawing I show today plays with many things. I continue to test the efficacy of my ideas; I test their intelligence and their ability to communicate emotions. Thus, in this drawing, you see competing spatial recognition on a flat piece of paper. There is drama in this drawing because it does not accept peaceful spatial coherency, nor comfortable consistency in forms. This drawing is just one question in the many questions I have been, and will be, asking.  Studies of successful bursts of creativity indicate a contrary idea; the most creative moments occur when processing is slow, measured, moderate, and deliberative. All of us have read books, seen films, which depict creation as a high energy, manic event. This isn't true. Truth-finding occurs slowly. Inventive creation is a slow recognition of truth. For me, right now, this is such a time. I have slowed. My concern with the pandemic Covid-19 virus has slowed me. Consequently my current work is forceful, honest, true; more absolute in its correctness than I have ever experience before.
Yesterday I finished the drawing began on 3/8/2020. It is left versus right, clarity in form versus less referential form; left side is pure pyramidal forms versus the right side filled with inventively more chaotic forms. This drawing is an allegory in reasoning, one way or the other way. Neither way is correct.  Drawing 02·26·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Unnamed (2020 No.2, state 1), oil on canvas, 52x55½ inches {Reference quote to be added after painting named.} The world feels queasy and uneasy. The drawing began on 2/26/2020 came to conclusion, but everything else in my life (and living) is up in the air, being questioned, is in search of resolutions. The darkness that is "Drawing 02·26·2020 (state 2)" is solidly frank; it speaks in a world in which light is sought, darkness abounds, but clarity can been seen — the forms within are definitive, edges are comprehended, the space in which its forms reside is known. This drawing is solace for the poor of spirit. Our spirits shall be redeemed.
The new painting, begun yesterday, remains unnamed. Today it will receive a name, one that reflects the state of my mind as I begin this new search for truth, clarity, and self-knowledge.  Drawing 10·09·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·08·2019 state 2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The resemblances of these two drawings, one from two day's ago and yesterday's, begs me to ask about amnesia. I forget and I remember, then I forget again. This rotation of remembered ideas is useful. All is new if one forgets the past. Surprise is one of the great animators to living the good life. Both drawings play against a white ground, like forms silhouetted by a bright sky. More important to me is spatial navigation. The drawing from two days ago is shown for the second time; it has been updated — this is state 2. It is better than state 1; the spatial force is stronger. A simple change was made: The intersection of the cross-like form connects in a different manner than in the original. I felt this idea needed further exploration. Yesterday's drawing sprung from this query; it immediately followed the fix of the drawing from 10/8/2019. Amnesia was partially at work; I did not wish this. Residue in the mind becomes the element of the question that is answered in the newest work. I would not have followed this path if I had remembered my intentions for that day. I had intended to risk everything, to surprise myself without questioning, simply going for new answers. I failed, but I succeeded by makings a drawing different than I had imagined upon my entering the studio. The best path is found if one steps without knowing exactly where one goes.
 Drawing 10·05·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Showing up is not enough. Recognition of appropriate spirit in the work is most important. This includes stepping back when proper insight in unavailable. There is an ebb and flow to self-comprehension, self-availability, self-intuition, and self-awareness. Recognizing this through the process of art making is the process of recognizing days of clarity and insight versus days of muddle and muck. Fortunately, though work, by showing up, day after day after day, the days with lack of clarity are few. I believe this to be true, but I also acknowledge there are days when I believe I am doing great things until I come in the next day, then I acknowledge more failure than success. This is the reason I believe in two steps forward followed by one step backward. Backward may be the wrong term, because failures lead to introspection, learning, insight; the stuff that guides to success.
Yesterday's drawing was filled with stepping back to query. I kept asking myself, "Does that make sense?" There are parts of this drawing on the edge of believability, like the circle-like shadowing seen in the right side of the drawing. The shadowing lies behind, and within, forms that produce an area of juxtaposition to the rest of the drawing's forms. It works spiritually. Is that enough?  Drawing 09·15·2019 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·15·2019 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 8), oil on canvas, 37x61.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} I love onions. They go in everything I make, except brownies. Moly has two definitions: (1) a southern European plant related to the onion, with small yellow flowers. (2) a mythical herb with white flowers and black roots, endowed with magic properties. I'll go with the second definition because my work is becoming magical; in the very least, it is magical to me! I have been working very hard on staying mindfully centered while making art. This is falling into play that is totally dependent on recognizing momentary truth in my marks, my forms, my composition, and my attitude. I am not sure this makes sense to you, but it is making more and more sense to me. The result is me getting closer to a reality that I cannot anticipate, but I recognize as one step in my path to an unknown, but totally legitimate, future. Holy Moly! My art continues to become more self-fulfilling. This continually surprises me. It is a thrilling journey! It is filled with unexpected truth.
Yesterday's drawings hunker down, into the stuff that makes me want to draw. Yesterday's painting took one more step toward its satisfaction. Yesterday, in an email, a friend of mine said he preferred Beethoven's Symphonies to Beethoven's quartets. I am just the opposite. Beethoven's Late Quartets have, to me, immediate potency; they are an intoxicant I measure by the great amount of my emotional responsiveness. I feel the same about several of Schubert's quartets, and also of a few of Brahms' piano trios. My drawings are my quartets. My paintings are my symphonies. When over and done, I love them equally, but the drawings are more directly related to my immediate emotions. I believe this emotional immediacy is the reason I thirst to listen to Beethoven's quartets more than his symphonies. Beethoven's symphonies are fully satisfying, but like a painting, they take much more time, and involvement, to fully realize. I am an anxious and needy sort; my immediate connection to the nuanced emotions in Beethoven's Late Quartets allows me to fall deeply, into a passionate trance.  Drawing 09·14·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·08·2019 (state 2), pencil & acrylic on paper, 16x20 inches Today's second image is state 2 of Drawing 09·08·2019. Titanium white acrylic paint was used to remove the form that dominated the upper portion of this drawing. I eliminated the meaningless. An error in my ways became apparent, it distracted from the important stuff. I reworked the drawing, I found openness, better use of negative space. White, blankness, absence of form; negative nothingness is absolutely required in order to give significance to positive form.
I have been doing too much. I have been making too many marks and too many forms. Allowing discovery without judgment, brings judgment. This authorizes the unavoidable, this emancipates drawing that represents reality. I had relied too much on models. Reliance on models is weakness that engenders error in judgement. My models are the work of artists I admire, also my own work that I believe successful. I had been obscuring my present by relying on ideas from my past, ideas I had seen and understood. My practice of working in the now, allowing my images to spill onto the page, rather than to be manufactured on the page, is correct. My work must represent my knowing and seeing in the moment I am living. This is the goal of mindful art. This is the goal of mindful mediation: (i) Recognize Emotions, (ii) Accept, (iii) Investigate, (iv) Non-Identify/Detach. The consequence is reality. Yesterday's drawing is me practicing the unavoidable.  Drawing 09·08·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5), oil on canvas, 47x30.5 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} Making art is making the unexpected. You never know what you are going to get. Oy vey, that sounds like Forrest Gump: "My momma always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.'" Yesterday's efforts surprised me. I fell into them as one falls into the scramble to get upright after being hit by a large ocean wave. It is the work to get upright, to breathe comfortably. Security is the issue. This is my struggle to get out of danger. I will always feel insecure. I will always be making an effort to make it better.
Now to a little technical information: I began yesterday's drawing to study the spatial perception I created in the painting, Gunfire Across My Consciousness. It is about the space under the form moving from the lower right as it moves diagonally up and over the central form. It creates a bridge with one abutment being the central form. I am fascinated by the negative three-dimensional space it creates, like perceiving the gap between a bridge and the surface of the water below it.  Drawing 08·04·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Even to me, yesterday's drawing sings a radical message. It conserves Western's Art's intrigue with perspective, yet creates a room-like environment inhabited by a form of many forms. It has little comfortable references to reality. This is pure three-dimensional abstraction, simultaneously conservative and radical. Viewing discomfort abounds! Is it good art? It is what it is: a test, a proving ground, research, and profoundly articulate. This drawing is filled with finesse of touch and of pencil marks. It exudes elegance in form-creation and in composition. Yet, it is disturbingly different; it is different than anything I have imagined prior to its existence. My role is not to judge, but to make, then move on to create some more.
|
To read my profile go to MEHRBACH.com.
At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
April 2020
|
RSS Feed