 Drawing 03·22·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 26), oil on canvas, 38.5x62.5 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 have written about Leo Tolstoy's "Great Man Theory." I called it Tolstoy's theory, but that is not correct. I called it Tolstoy's Great Man Theory because it is to Tolstoy's ideas that I subscribe. Tolstoy's "War and Peace" features criticism of Thomas Carlyle's Great Man Theory. According to Tolstoy, the significance of great individuals is imaginary; as a matter of fact they are only history's slaves realizing the decree of Providence. I do not believe in the Great Man Theory of Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle originated the idea that History is created by individual Heroes. This is idiocy! Carlyle's Theory cannot describe the rise of Adolf Hitler; Post World War I German society called for a bombastic man, a man full of hate. Hitler was not a Great Man, but Hitler did force every culture, in every nation, to change! History, like science, like my art, takes a step backward for every two steps forward. Our society is in the midst of a step backward, but soon our society will take two steps forward. I am watching our nation's Republican leadership fade into History; they will soon be replaced by their betters. Pandemics will be better handled; Global Warming will be tackled. Our society is living through a confused time. Almost half our population believes there is this man who will fix our problems; they made him President — nothing says confusion clearer than that! For my part, I am divorcing myself from it. There is no such thing as a Great Man. There are smart men, men who see and understand the intelligence of the most balanced of us. These men advance the ideas of us who wish to run society based upon ideas known through intelligent and realistic thought. For instance, science tells us Global Warming is a problem; most people believe this; most people see the world correctly. We have a President of the United States who does not believe Global Warming is a problem. We have a President who believes the Coved-19 cure is worse than the disease; he says we should ignore the Covid-19 outbreak after Easter Sunday 2020. Science tells us otherwise. I am the product of the time in which I live. I am expressing myself by stepping forward. The body of knowledge I have been given is my stepping-off point. This knowledge is helping me express my perception of here and now. You can see this in the work I show today. BTW: The paintng, "Something Else Entirely" is in State 26, but this state took only one small stroke of paint to move to this much more satisfactory conclusion. Little things do matter! Thomas Carlyle stated that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men", reflecting his belief that heroes shape history through both their personal attributes and divine inspiration. In his book "On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History," Carlyle saw history as having turned on the decisions, works, ideas, and characters of “heroes".  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 10), oil on canvas, 38.5x62.5 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 can feel more than I can see. Yes, you can see the alterations I made to the painting, "Sentence". The changes are great and wonderful, but they are not as starkly in revolt as I know intuitionally inside myself. I am welling up, like a water ballon on verge of explosion. But, I am loyal too. Taking on a civil war is difficult for me. I want change. I need to rebel against my establishment, but the rebellion cannot happen instantaneously; that is not the way I am. I act with discomfort and allegiance. The two are not incompatible. I have a past, I have a future. Both must be understood. I am the caretaker of both. The future does not divulge itself without its past. The past is full of deeds — some successes, some failures — ALL informative. The ALL drives me into the knowing required to act well, right here, right now.
 Drawing 08·24·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Things must change! I am well educated; thus I am well tied to past knowledge. This restricts me because knowledge is the stuff that came before me. I am uncomfortable because the past does not adequately inform my present. I am not those who came before me. I am me. I am here, I am now. That which has happened is useful, like a good diving board, but it does not fully clarify who I am. Education is who and what there was, not who and what I am. I do not want to be redundant. I do not want to be repetitive. I want to be myself.
In yesterday's drawing I stopped myself before I overwhelmed it with past history. I require radical alteration. I accept my despair. I have made great art, but my art is in the books, my art is in this blog; my past art appeared like fungus on a log; it grew from art history and personal history. That is not good enough! It does not make me. It does not represent me. It represents acquisition of all that has come before.  Drawing 05·14·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Tonight at 5:30pm I give a Gallery Talk at AVA Gallery. Yesterday and today I have been preparing. I have assembled a slide show of works; this was extremely instructive. I have been given a gift of speaking about myself for an hour! The slide show illustrates my artistic development, from pre-student days until today.
I made the drawing you see here during the last couple of days. I continue to be distracted by preparation for my exhibits. It is intruding on my artistic investigations. I have been drawing, but not painting. I relish contemplation of my current ideas and my current art. In writing today I am trying to convince myself there are merits to looking back. Looking back is preparation for being now. The process of becoming an artist is not a straight line, nor is it filled with assurance and confidence. It is questioning everything created. Along the way there is insight, exhilaration, and depression. I very much forward to being an everyday artist again. I delight in the simplicity of going to the studio, working through my many ideas. This will not occur again until mid-June of this year.  Drawing 08·01·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Historically the latter days of summer, late July thru August, have seen me more contemplative than me sparking fresh ideas. This appears to be true in yesterday's work. First I made a new drawing (above), then I did a little fix to Drawing 07.27·2017 No.2 (below). Rarely do I go back and contemplate drawings from my past. I did yesterday. This is the mood I am in. I believe this is a gathering of energy and information prior to my next big creative period.  Drawing 07·27·2017 No.2 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches   Wild 3D (1990), and Tele-Vision (2015), both oil on canvas The more things change the more they remain the same. Twenty-five years separate the creation of the paintings reproduced above, yet they have remarkable similarities. I am not going to make art for the next 12 days. Instead, I am going to spend my time mulling over the current state of my work, its efficacy, its derivative history (both internal and external), and my ongoing mission to make it relevant to myself and to you, my viewers.
  Drawings of 7/16/2015, both 20X16 inches, pencil on paper I have been unable to get into the studio for a few days, but I am back today. The drawings shown today are 6 days old, reminding us of where I am.
 Drawing-06·04·2015, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches I am not sure of the exact meaning of yesterday's drawing, posted above, but it could be two of me. The left guy is erect, confident, with large, open hands; he is strong and ready to go. The right guy is leaning back, leaning away, head sideways; he appears fragile with his small, closed hands. The right guy definitely lacks confidence. I am feeling very good about my artistic development. I will never be fully satisfied, but I am relishing the journey. I believe, for the first time, that I have gathered the necessary tools to do whatever needs to be done. I have reached a high degree of mastery. I have confidence I can achieve that which I can conceive. Through my art I want to interact with the world. This blog exists because I want to communicate. However, this blog's limitations are obvious. Therefore, I accept the necessity to engage in the business of art. I need to get my art out there, into venues that may be seen by those who are emotionally engaged in the visual arts. I also wish to make my art accessible to all and everyone. This brings me to today. In the past I have had many exhibitions, shown my work in important galleries, and been juried into competitive shows. During the past four years I have stepped back from that sort of engagement and I have been writing this blog, exhibiting my work here. Late last year I began to feel the need to step back into the brick and mortar world of gallery exhibitions. I put out a few feelers and applied to several juried competitions. Nothing happened. Call it rejection. So, today I begin to think as a businessman who happens to have visual art as his product. Every Friday I am going to devote time to this effort. Today is Friday.
 "Asparagus" (Painting-02·14·2015 state 5), oil & acrylic marker on canvas, 52X60 inches ...row, row, row... refers to my having very little to say in recent blog posts. The images are coming, but not the words. I would like to think my images are supplanting words. That the images speak for themselves. That I have no great passion to verbally explain my thought process because the visual work is explaining itself. Daily readers know I have been struggling with an accurate reproduction of Asparagus. Today's image is closer than usual, albeit imperfect. The bug (fly?) did move since my previous post. Yesterday's drawing was sustained and methodical. Every once in while I return to feeling my way through ALL the surface of a created form. Yesterday's drawing had that kind of contemplative process. I was swept away from recognizable thought, which felt good during the process. One other superficial idea came to me. I am beginning to title my paintings — this makes for quicker identification, and allows conversation without confusion, which is inherent when titles are numeric and date driven. However, I do not wish the interpretations of my paintings to be driven by titles. I named my most recently completed painting with a four work title. Now I believe it is distractingly verbose. One word titles are better for my intentions, i.e. let the viewer construe the interpretation. This said, I have reduced my most recently completed painting's title to Heresy. This shortened title appears below the painting's reproduction on my website, MEHRBACH.com, but not in this blog. This blog, after all, is a diary of my thought process. I will not go back in this blog's post to change its title. I think one of best titles of all time is Guernica, Picasso's great anti-war painting. Being one word, it can be referred to easily; the title, Guernica, immediately brings with it the mental image of the painting with little encumbrance of verbal distraction.  Drawing-02·21·2015, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches  Untitled Drawing-07·12·2014, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches I nearly forgot about this part of me, this underlying sense of the comic. One has to accept the humor of living as a consequence of the definitive fleetingness of our existence. Nothing is really serious. It is only our invention of ego and history that causes our investment in actions as important. So I am very happy to see the resurgence of humor in my drawing. I am surprised! Once again I am reminded that the consistency of practice brings unexpected benefits. This is why art is research. Just when you believe your work has paid off in self-discovery, another layer of fog gets stripped away. You discover, you renew, you remind yourself who you authentically are. The drawings of the last two have this kind of authenticating importance.
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At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
July 2020
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