 Drawing 12·05·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 12·05·2021 (state 1), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I once read Pablo Picasso hired studio helpers to duplicate his paintings in process. He did this because he wanted to go two ways with the same painting. This happens to me, in drawings and in paintings. I do not have studio helpers. Yesterday I moved a drawing to a place I thought was as good as it gets, then I had second thoughts. I photographed state 1; went back into the same drawing. This happens often to me; usually I do not take the time to photograph earlier states. I am desperate to get to the best conclusions possible. In fact, the more I know the more desperate I am. My artistic intensity is on the rise. I am feel upset, like an angry person in quest of a solution to my problems. In this case ,it is the failure of my Art to be as good as I know it can be.
I do like state 2 of this drawing much better than state 1. I am toying with allowing negative space to have its day. However, I do hate vacuums, pure white. I need to see everything that is the surface's ground. Van Gogh and I are similar in this regard. True too with Andrew Wyeth.  Drawing 12·06·2019 (state 1), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches "Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door!" That old saying should apply to my work. No one is more skilled, making more important investigative art, than I. Where's the beat to my door? The knocking is there, but sale prices for my art are minuscule compared to the $120,000 paid recently for an actual decaying banana duct taped to a wall. Amazingly, two editions of this sculpture[sic] sold, each for $120,000, at this year's Art Basil Miami.
In any case, I am not there yet. Yesterday's drawing will be improved. The ground of its upper left portion is indicated by line strokes. I must stop being so pure, insisting (as I have) on strokes of pencil rather than smooshes of graphite. Today I will fill in the upper left portion with smudges of dry graphite. Check back tomorrow for state 2 of this drawing.  Drawing 07·25·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches There is an end to everything. This applies to a painting as well. One can make paintings as walls. One can make paintings as landscapes. One can make paintings that inhabit a room. In ALL cases, there is a ground. The ground is the viewer's agency to find his bearing. An early influence upon my art was Yves Tanguy (1900-1955). Before I began today's post, I thought to myself, "Hey, Tanguy made images without horizons!" NOT true! Yves Tanguy ended his career making surrealistic LANDSCAPES! Tanguy began his artistic career, like all of us, making figurative paintings (see below). In ALL cases, despite my early morning intellectualized doubt, there is a definitive ground in Tanguy's paintings, always! There are horizon lines even when Tanguy creates an amorous background fog; there it is, in every work, a back-ground! And so it goes! Another early influence on my art was Arshile Gorky (1904-1948). The same grounding occurs in Gorky's works (see below). These has to be a defined rear-end to a painting, which I shall henceforth call, "the ground". Without the ground the viewer is left with insecurity of place. It is the relationship to security that makes a painting free, open, and emotive, thus allowing unrestrained creativity. Without security there is only loss; loss means absence, absence means a lie, a lie means dishonesty. The last thing I want my art to be is dishonest! I began yesterday's drawing looking to test the "no horizon" idea. I cannot do it! A ground allows the artist to create havoc or security or insecurity or whatever. Life and art have irrefutable definitions. One of them is this: we exist in a place and in time; i.e., we exist on something that can be called our ground. Art mimics life. That is impossible to deny!  Yves Tanguy, "Indefied Divisibility", oil on canvas, 1942  Yves Tanguy, "The Traveling Performers", oil on canvas, 1926  Arshile Gorky, "Dark Green Painting", oil on canvas, 1948  Drawing 07·12·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One of my constant regrets in living is my inability to react quickly to a stupid or divisive comment made to me. I must mull. Nothing comes quick and easy. I strike at my drawings and paintings with quickness, criss-crossing in search of forms, space, and composition, but I admit to sometimes missing a bigger idea during my activity. Yesterday I was fine with my drawing... for about 10 minutes. Look at it! After the 10 minutes of mull, I became conscious of the blank white-ness of the ground in upper half of the drawing. I had neglected the ground in the upper-half while in search for the stuff in the lower-half! The forms do play well in the upper-half, but I am uncomfortable for the lack of attitude behind those forms. The comment I made about not reacting to another person's stupid comment is apropos; I think this drawing would be better if I scratched out the ground in its upper-half. Vincent van Gogh learned this. Van Gogh learned slowly too; it took him two years to get from the blank sky in his 1886 drawing (see below) to an animated sky in his 1888 drawing. Van Gogh's solution to a blank upper-half ground is informative in regard to my concern about the white upper-half of yesterday's drawing. Van Gogh continued to learn to his final days — his last paintings and drawings are magnificent!    "The Intervening Tick" (2018 No.6, state 1), oil on canvas, 49x33 inches {"Is that where wise men want us to live; in that intervening tick, the tiny slot that occurs after you have spent hours searching downtown for that new club and just before you give up and head back home?" - Billy Collins, "The Present", from "New Ohio Review" 2017}  Drawing 07·03·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches A photograph was published in my local newspaper; it shows a father and his very young daughter (perhaps 4 years old) on an ocean beach. The forms of the father and daughter occupy approximately just 10% of the photo, dead-center. They are hugging, mugging for the camera, the ocean's horizon is absolutely horizontal and absolutely centered, cutting across and behind them. This photo was the inspiration for my new painting, The Intervening Tick. This photo struck me hard: the figures dominated my attention despite their relative smallness. I thought I would give this idea a try. Yesterday's drawing was a study for the painting. Like the painting, there are definitive forms on a ground and background.
 Drawing 05·24·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The distractions in life that help make things work, but don't make me feel emotional satiated, are too many. As examples, there is the slowness of my internet connection and the holes in the side of my truck that need fixing in order for it to pass state inspection. I am dealing with those kinds of mundane things at the same time I am trying to make emotionally satisfying art, Yesterday was more the former, less of the latter. I did make one substantial drawing; I made it fast, it came easily. This drawing sums a few of my recent explorations. It makes sense to me in its play with 3D space, value contrast, form, and ground. More in this manner are coming....
 Drawing 11·14·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am a man with an appetite. Are we not all? I will gobble my way to sanity. Yeah, there will be boggles along the way. I am, however, getting there. Yesterday's drawing is clogged with information. Today I will try another route. I will establish ground, then move toward resolution.
 "2017 No.13" (state 14), oil on canvas, 62x69 inches  Drawing 11·12·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The unrelenting questions are becoming less annoying and more practical. Questions get answered, but not always for the best. I see this in the left edge of state 14 of the painting 2017 No. 14. Its increased width on the left side is good, but the unevenness of its left black border disturbs me. That border is not a complete failure. It did prove the forms on the left of this painting require more room to move. Other questions were asked yesterday. The snake-like object encircling the large form on the right had its value lightened. It reads better. Success comes as process, from questions asked to answers given, one by one. This repeats till it all makes sense. The remains of process eventually become all that remains.
There are questions and answers in yesterday's drawing too. I was examining the ground as a three-dimensional plane lit with a major specular highlight. Nice!  Drawing 11·09·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The revelation of personal religious zeal is the heaven that is found within the momentary realization that the mark made is earthly correct. As I accept this premise my art becomes more me and more real. More real is surprising since its abstraction from the experiential data allows it to resemble the world I have experienced without mimicking that world. Here I am today showing you one more drawing on my road toward acceptance. This is what I do.
Today's drawing is self-real, yet also plays falsely within its own stated reality. Do you see the mark approximately one-third from the left and one-third from the top? It is simply a mark amongst a plethora of forms. The forms pretend to be three-diemsional, but the mark is just a mark, a splotch on the page. It is a required mark. Without it the back and forth force of this composition would be relentless, and questionable. It would lack grounding. This mark grounds it. It allows the forms to play with energy against the mark's static, solid touch to paper. |
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November 2024
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