Swimming in the open ocean is for the self-determined. It is risk-taking. Without risk-taking my art would be repetitive, I'd be bored, and I would have no chance of self-realization. Strange instigates change, instigates reality. Reality is deceptive. It confuses the ability to see truth. As example, there is a reality defined by the likes and dislikes of commercial art gallery dealers. They like art they know, not art that challenges them. This is not just from me. Jean-Michel Basquiat (from the little book, Basquiat-isms) said, "Most identifiable things are what [commercial art dealers] like. I did some portraits last year and they really hated those. But the artists like them." This was exactly my experience with my three recent exhibitions. This does not make me feel better or worse. I feel a need to question all my past art, a need to create chaos in order to seek true ground. This happened yesterday. If yesterday's images disturb you, then good for you and good for me. 

My art has not yet taken the rebel leap for which I yearn. The major jump has not happened! Yesterday I listened to the podcast entitled You 2.0: Rebel With A Cause on National Public Radio's "Hidden Brain". Please listen to it.

Several weeks ago I began my quest for rebellion. This activity, me becoming a rebel, is happening. You 2.0: Rebel With A Cause is about Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor who studies rebels, people who practice "positive deviance" and achieve incredible feats of imagination. Rebels know how, and when, to break the rules that should be broken. Gino ponders the traits of successful rebels. Recently, in my blog, I have written that I am afraid that my vast education, my high skill level, is holding me back from becoming my true self (read the blog posts that immediately precede this one: Talent versus Skill, Noxious Truth, and Radicalizing Me).

Yesterday's studio work is challenging me, but it is not yet the rebel leap I desire.

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.

I have been away from the studio. I was attending serious business. I visited museums. I had a dream in which I dialogued with Picasso. I contemplated. I retreated from Making-Art. I contemplated Making-Art. My many recent exhibitions left me confused. "What am I doing?" and "Why am I doing it?"

The art-making I seek requires skill and talent. Today's contemporary art scene often appears devoid of skill. That said, there is a talent there, one that causes public and private interest and engagement. We live in a world where celebratory personalities head countries and engage many followers. Upon inspection, some of these leaders are devoid of the required skill and knowledge to do their jobs well. However, there is talent there, a talent that causes public discourse and public interest. That is the definition of Artist. This illustrates my personal quandary. My confusion is comprehensible. I received a lot of positive feedback from artists, some gallery and museum directors expressed appreciation of my art. I did not get a lot of sales. I take lack of sales as lack of engagement. My viewers did not choose to put my art on their walls. Desire speaks of engagement. I want espousal; I want my viewers to want my art. If they do not want it they must not need it. I have failed if my viewers don't need my art, if they don't need to buy it, or own it. I feel I did not fully engage my viewers. This saddens me. I want more. I want my relationship with my viewers to be consummated!

My skill is extremely high. I can do anything on paper (or canvas) that I can imagine. Perhaps I have restricted my imagination to knowledge already acquired. I must engage my skill with greater abandon, with ambition to disclose more deeply than that which I intellectually comprehend. I am not who I think I am; I am more. The only way to know oneself is to uncover oneself. I must walk naked into the world. People love to look at naked people. They are unable to NOT look. Is this the gap I have been unable to fill between my viewers and I?  I need to take off all of my clothes.

Referring to popular culture, this is what I see, We have a president of the United States who is more reality TV star than successful statesman or successful business person. This man obtained his lofty position by appearing to be upfront and personal (despite the many questions surrounding his truthfulness). He has engaged our entire population despite his lack of skill for his current office. That is his talent. It is talent that may serve me well as artist. I want to engage. I want people to pay attention to my art. There are NO limits to what I can do because I have the necessary skill to do it. My failure to fully engage my viewers is my lack of a certain kind of talent. One can see the talent I am missing in our current president, also it is present in reality TV stars, in pop music artists, and in show business celebrities. The artist Andy Warhol was more a successful celebrity than a skillful artist. This explains a talent I must nurture in order to fully engage my viewers. My extreme artistic skill is squandered if I do not have the talent to engage my viewers. 

I dreamed I was with Picasso in his studio. Picasso threw me out. Picasso silently waved goodbye to me. I reluctantly gave in; I said goodbye. I walked away from one of my great educators. I do not need mentors any longer. I must rely solely on myself. It is no longer about what I know; it is about what I do not know, what I need to discover.

Yesterday's drawing is much different from the one in this blog's previous post. There is a two-week gap in time between these two drawings. I have begun to take steps without knowing where I am stepping. I step in confidence without knowing where the next step will lead. That is a good thing.

I prefer to deal with the artifice of the third-dimension on a flat surface, on canvas or paper. This is obvious in my images; obvious in the two works I show from yesterday's studio session.

Henri Matisse constantly dealt with this problem. Many have said Matisse's art is mostly decorative. It is more than that. Matisse himself said this: "What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity, devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter, an art which could be for every mental worker, for the businessman as well as the man of letters, for example, a soothing, calming influence on the mind, something like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue." That sounds like decoration to me! Matisse also said this: "Expression, to my way of thinking, does not consist of the passion mirrored upon a human face or betrayed by a violent gesture. The whole arrangement of my picture is expressive. The place occupied by figures or objects, the empty spaces around them, the proportions – everything plays a part. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the various elements at the painter’s disposal for the expression of his feelings."

I agree with the second quote from Matisse more than the first. Expression is my desire too. However, I do not believe this (from Matisse): "Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner...." It is far more difficult that that. Expression is far more than decoration. It can be tough and caustic, clean or messy. I continue to research this problem.

​Let me show two works of Henri Matisse. One tough, filled with three-dimension references, the other absolutely decorative, absolutely flat on flat (see below). I have tried to prove my thesis, that the artifice of the third-dimension can produce superior, more expressive art. than flat on flat. These two works by Henri Matisse are undeniably terrific and expressive. Of the two, I prefer the former. They are both decorative, but they are both bold and expressive as well. Kudos to Henri Matisse! I will continue to research self-expression through the use of three-dimensional forms on a flat canvas. I intuitively feel this method will bring me far past the expressive limitations of flat on flat. I must say is, "I am not Henri Matisse!" I admire Matisse's art, but I admire myself more. 

Paintings and drawings are flat, two-dimensional surfaces. If an artifice of the third dimension is created there are two choices. In order to deal with the inherent two-dimensionality of canvas or paper an artist can... (1) create a box, or landscape, by using a ground defined by a horizon, or (2) hang forms from a flat wall (the wall being defined by obvious positioning of the forms on the wall). There is third way to deal with two-dimensional canvas or paper: Float flat objects in an amorphous space. This third option, flat on flat, is always unsatisfactory. It is decoration. It is merely wallpaper. It cannot be art! Decoration is nice and pleasant, it may fill a void on a wall, but it cannot speak deeply of the human spirit, complex as the human spirit is, with intellect and emotion.

Joan Miró tried doing both; he made paintings with the artifice of the third-dimension, and he made paintings that have flat objects on amorphous backgrounds. Miró's paintings with the third dimensional deceit mostly succeed, Miró's flat on flat paintings mostly fail (they are decorative and may fit well as decorations in a home, nothing more). Below, look at two paintings by Joan Miró. I admit, the second painting, which is flat on flat, exhibits Miró's effort to define the ground by using uneven areas of paint (in this way a viewer, at least, is cognizant the painting is on a flat surface).

Henri Matisse did both. He created flat on flat works (e.g., his late paper cuts), but most of his career was spent making drawings and paintings with an exuberant questioning of color and three-dimensional space. I will discuss Matisse's work tomorrow.

In yesterday's drawing I experimented with the lack of a horizon line; however there is an obvious horizon and an obvious ground.

Today's entry is partially a tale of two visitors. Two artists visited my studio; an illuminating conversation ensued. One artist questioned my use of a horizon line. For the last few years I have consistently used the horizon line to place a definitive ground in my drawings and my paintings; therefore allowing the viewer to think, "Landscape!" This question, "Horizon or not?", began a fascinating discussion amongst us three. I have no sound judgement. I don't know. I do know I dealt with this same problem around 1990 (after this text I show two works from that period). The first of these older paintings was reviewed by as art critic; he questioned my lack of establishing a touchable ground. The second painting is my reaction to that relevant criticism. I have not found an answer that gives me security. And thus it goes...

Yesterday's work is shown above. Both the drawing and the painting have an obvious horizon line.

Finally, at the bottom of this post I show a work by Anselm Kiefer, widely respected as one of the most important painters of our generation. Kiefer is, even in his most abstract works, landscape relentless.

I failed yesterday if simplicity be my goal. It is not! I want the intellectual and emotional satisfaction of complex images and the direct and immediate engagement of simplicity. Ellsworth Kelly achieved great visual impact using simple images. Kelly's work satisfies emotionally and intellectually. His is a great achievement. As much as I envy Kelly's direct route to completely fulfilling art, I am not Ellsworth Kelly; I am myself. My path continues to be discovered, step by currently unknown next step. Yesterday's drawing was such a step. It taught me; I reflect upon it. I want the negative space in my art to be as effective as Ellsworth Kelly was able to achieve in his art.

As I made yesterday's drawing I felt rusty, a little out of touch with my present ideas. But here it is, and here I am. I continue on the labor of readying my paintings and drawings for the AVA Gallery exhibition; my works will be delivered this coming Friday, April 26.

In making yesterday's drawing I had to wrangle with myself; I had to force myself to focus on my two most present interests: (1) Full frontal composition akin to the means Pablo Picasso used, and (2) A greater involvement with the emotional subtleties that are available when negative space is used effectively. Yesterday's drawing approached both of these interests, but became dark and menacing as it was worked and re-worked; I hit it with an extreme amount of pencil marks. This drawing did not come easily.

Today, I finish touching-up the last two paintings going to AVA Galley, and I framed two of the four more drawings I must frame for the AVA exhibit. Perhaps I will get a chance to draw. I very much want to keep in touch with my current thoughts.

It took me two days to make this drawing because I did not have the time to do it in one sitting. This time management is caused by the necessity that I frame works for my upcoming exhibition at AVA Gallery. If you follow the link to AVA you would see the announcement on AVA's homepage.

Going away from a partially finished drawing, then returning to finish it, is both beneficial and detrimental. Beneficial because it forces introspection upon return to the half finished drawing (I see it afresh; I see it more clearly; I immediately recognize its successes and failures). The detrimental part is me losing track of the original question I asked. In this case, in the drawing I show today, I wanted to inspect the possibilities of vigor in an insistently classically flat composition, one designed to be seen flat in the viewer's face. I often think of the great success Pablo Picasso had using this method in his painting Guernica, which has a central flat, in the viewer's face, triangle, surrounded by two side panels.