The last two nights I have had dream, after dream, after dream.
Two nights ago it was about a new kind of art, toward abstraction, in search of a new manner of emotional conversation. It was still formal in its compositional solidity. I saw myself setting up the image on the canvas with raw, three-dimensional forms, not precluding natural forms, but working with and against nature. It was me searching for emotional images. I wanted the viewer to deeply feel that which I feel. Last night it was about being lost. I was back in high school, thrown out somewhere in Los Angeles, far, far from home, without money, without identification. I was not lost. I needed to create a means to return to school because I was expected to announce a basketball game. Lost I am. In search I am. I am about to return to the studio with a mandate. That which I have done in 2014 is merely a transition (as always!). The year 2014 saw me moving myself out of my confusion toward acceptance that authentication requires a new way seeing. I have to create a means of getting home to myself. My dreams have given me clarity and strength. I can do this! I am about to make art that does not fully resemble the stuff I did in 2014. This new direction requires a greater embrace of abstraction. That, it appears, is the only way I will adequately express myself. Obvious it is!!! The question, "Is it right?", will forever be unanswered. My job is to keep seeking, to make a consistent effort to be true to myself during the moments of creation, and to keep looking for truth and deceptions. I must nurture the truth. That's all there is to this art-making.
Yesterday's drawing was a stab at the satisfaction I am seeking. I made the forms, and the composition, with little fanfare, little criticism, and a lot of asking, "Does this feel good?" Yes, it does! I like the forms, I like the punctuations of dark values which animate the passage of light through the composition. It is this play of values, this light versus dark punctuation on forms, that creates the artifice of light, that I very much enjoy. The reference to natural forms may, or may not, be important. I am researching this, but at this time I have no definitive answer... "To reference natural forms or to create my own?" Perhaps the sweet spot for me is a combination of reference to visual nature while accepting open invention of form not seen before. This would allow me to step from the place I visually inhabit to an art that sings with my internalized visions and dreams. This sounds about right to me! My recent work is telling: I have not been true to myself. I am not interested in the figure as a primary image. I believe it is a conduit to expression, but not the end-all of expression. The abstract power of composition, form, and color, are far more important. As example, my devotion to drawing human couples has been a distraction. Why? It has allowed me to acquire knowledge with little expressive satisfaction. In drawing such a mundane subject I have enhanced my technical abilities. I have enhanced my form making, graphic punctuation, and spatial expression. I accept these abstract qualities as my drops of candy. I enjoy them in the way we all enjoy eating incredibly, perfectly balanced, candies (excellent dark chocolates are my favorites). These satisfyingly sweet qualities are clues to the path I should follow. My repetitive return to the figure, in normal reductive space, has been my distraction. I have begun an effort to break myself of this habit so I may seek my candy. I want to follow the path of most pleasure. Example, I find the man's right leg in yesterday's second drawing extremely pleasureable (his left leg is on the viewer's right). The play of form is animated by the staccato of the toes ending an appendage which flows forward in space, as if hovering above ground. The forward thrust of space is partially created by simple punctuation of dark that mimics a shadow on a floor. Oh! This is so very satisfying to me!
What I need to do now is follow these clues. Follow them like stones laid down in a path. If I do this, I will follow new forms, new spaces, new compositions, and new colors, on my way to multiple satisfactions. I want to walk out of the studio satiated, not feeling as I have recently felt. I have been feeling too much like an explorer with no satisfactory discoveries. Not good. ...to get this painting right. The speed of that oil drys is the limiting factor. Details, details. The messiness of oil, wet on wet, is a problem for me. I do not seem to be able to get acceptable details in this painting, Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014, in one day of painting. It is best that I slow my desire to complete this painting to the speed of drying oil. This instigates anxiety, which I must control in order to ignore its dominance in my activity. Yesterday saw me working on the girl in the right panel. I will not work on her today. I'll work on the left and central panels, or maybe to her shoes and legs, but definitely not on her oil-wet face. Patience is difficult. I need to accept that each day of work gets this painting closer to its reason for existence.
Yesterday's drawing is yet another surprise. Where am I going? I was watching a film last night, an old romantic comedy. The best friend of the male protagonist said to his bewildered, romantically involved friend, something like this: "If you do not risk confusion, embarrassment, and misdirection, you cannot find truth." So, I guess, to best answer my question about where am I going, I must seek from where I came, which is equally confusing. Every now and then I get so involved in the emotional impact of a work in process that I do not remember to properly check its anatomy. Is this good or bad? I am unsure. I believe the emotional impact should trump all other concerns. It is the emotional impact that secures the viewer's interest, and, after all, is the conduit to my personal expression. I am writing about the problems with the man's anatomy in the drawing reproduced below (from two days ago; I did not post yesterday). For some reason I wanted to depict the man from behind. He is looking up, with his scapulas in stress. It doesn't work properly because the neck begins too far down the back. I feel I could easily reverse him, making his back into his front by simply changing the scapulas to pectoral muscles (his hands and arms would have to be reversed too). I am not going to do it. I'm going to move on. BTW: I like the floating woman. I am especially pleased by her head, feet, tummy, and hands.
The right panel of the painting Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 now plays well with the left panel. That done, I will now move onto refinements to the heads and the hands (i.e., the details). Yesterday's activity of painting brought me way back to 1991. At that point in my career I was an abstract painter, making what I called "3D Abstractions" (see one of those paintings below the reproductions of yesterday's work). Well, yesterday, while painting, I remembered that sensation of applying light on canvas as I struggled to make three-dimensional forms. It happened in the left panel of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014, where the artifice of the walls I was creating must appear authentically 3D, forcing this character into his alcove. In Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 I am in the somewhat tedious part of its journey. Subtle changes are occurring, each making the painting better. Day by day, change by change, I will bring this thing to finality (despite a wish to move on to a new painting). For instance, looking at today's reproduction, I believe the wall behind the woman in the right panel must now be subtly alter in order to balance that right panel with the one on the left. What I perceive here is not always true. The truth occurs only when standing in front of the actual work. However, I do find my reproductions here extremely informative. My reaction to them is often true upon return to physically standing in front of the real thing.
Yesterday's drawing was interesting in its unusualness. Today's title is less reality than a query. It is very confusing to be an artist. It's like diving blind into a quarry pond, dark and deep with no sunshine to illuminate its depth. The safety of the dive is in question. Picasso said it well: "Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen." I am becoming permeated with this reality. The only way forward is to give into knowledge deeper and smarter than anything I consciously know. I am allowing myself to be taken over by forces I do not understand. I am a prisoner of the internalization of all I have seen. Woe is me!
The question which keeps bugging me is, "Why don't I know more quickly?" This process is slow, full of testing and failures. The woman in the right panel of Untitled Triptych-08·13·2014 is getting closer to appearing well enough to accept, but she ain't there yet! The look on her head is better. I believe her head is too large. At this point the woman's head in the right panel does not play effectively with the man's head in the left panel. The size of her head places her in a world apart, so her head must diminish in order to bring her back into the overall composition.
Yesterday's drawing was approached differently than usual. I let it fall on the paper, rather than forced it upon the paper. In other words, I did not begin with an idea. I made stroke after stroke, seeking forms which made sense within the developing composition. I carefully watched the developing forms for impact and quality. This method brought me back to the days when I made abstract three dimensional compositions. It made me think, that possibly, I am more about the abstract power of a picture than the figurative power. This will continue to be tested. The range of my work has been restricted by my dedication to the figure. I am uncomfortable with restrictions. You may miss the changes in Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 during your first quick glance at today's reproduction of the painting. They may appear minor because of the small size of the reproduction. But, again, they are surprisingly important. Zoom in (its in HD!). In the left panel you will see the changes in the feet and legs of the woman, and in the right hand of the man. Mostly I worked on the woman's feet and legs. Her back leg moved forward, and her toes became defined. Her legs, one after the other, generate a vertical plane which produces a spatial corridor between the man and the woman. It is important compositionally, and emotionally!
For the last two days my studio time has been divided like this: First, Experimental drawing. Second: Enhancing minor elements of Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Yesterday I spent two-thirds of my time on the drawing. It is difficult to believe, but the decision making on the woman's feet and legs took well over an hour. Basically. I think I can sustain this daily rhythm of working for at least another week. As you know, I very much want to move onto the next painting, but I feel this is as important to me as "Joy of Life" was to Matisse and "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was to Picasso (both reproduced below my work). The painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 took a turn toward "rightness" with yesterday's changes to the man in the left panel. However, looking at the entire diptych, the man in the right panel needs revision. His stature (or lack of it) is important to the meaning of the painting, both compositionally and emotionally. After the corrections to the man in the left panel, the head of the man in the right panel appears too large. The work demanded by this complex painting is incredibly absorbing and demanding. I am not tired yet. I am dedicated to finishing this painting properly. Somehow I know this painting is a turning point in the acquisition of the knowledge I require to express myself.
Yesterday's drawing is one more study for the man in the left panel of the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Take it for what it is, but once again I have to tell you that the reproductions that appear here pale compared to the actual works. There is no way the subtle play of the pencil lines, and their value contrasts, can be reproduced properly. Even more difficult to reproduce is the complex color values and hues in a painting, especially one as large as Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Don't worry, I will give you some lead time before these works are shown in exhibition. |
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April 2024
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