Is heaviness important? I mean heavy, like gravity heavy? Pyramids are heavy! And here they are, appearing in my drawings, two days in a row. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is intuition. I do not know where these weighty pyramids are leading me, but it feels important. So goes the intuition.
My newest painting, "2016 No.8", began with paint called "Torrit Grey", made by Gamblin. The paint was a free add-on to a recent order of brushes and canvas. Curiously Torrit Grey's pigments are listed as "ALL", the fine print saying its pigments were gathered from the factory's air filtration system. Curiously, it is not grey, it is brown, as seen in today's reproduction of "2016 No.8".
Yesterday was a good day. I am moving quickly toward freedom in three-dimensional abstraction, separating from the visual reality of our real world, but dependent on how we see light, color, and form. This is beginning to make intuitive sense to me. It feels right. Composition is outshining reality, yet the reality of shadow, light, and form are there to play with, to compose with, to emote with. Yesterday's drawings explore this too. The space is compressed, but open to the possibility of deeper artifice of space. Today I show the first reproductions from photos taken by my new Nikon DSLR. Their accuracy is better, as is their resolution. CAUTION: Nothing can be reproduced accurately. Again, the best you can do is see it in person. Reality is better, always!
Yesterday began a new painting, "2016 No.7". I am dealing with my instincts. I began via paint alone, allowing responsive behavior to take over. I am making an effort to break through my higher level intuition, trying to go deeper to a place of pure response. I am seeking trust in my reflexes. Trust in one's reflexes allows one to catch a hard grounder (in baseball). Why should it not be the same in painting? I have been busy with friends, family, and my ex-art demands. I think the intensity of those demands is almost over. At least I believe the next few weeks will be quite a bit more clear in terms of my flexible time. One never knows, but I am strongly looking foward to sustained, dedicated time in the studio.
Today's post-title refers to a sculpture that graces the land adjacent to I-89 near Randolph, Vermont. I did not consciously think of this whale's tale sculpture, which sticks out of the ground like a cross. But here it is! There is resemblance, though the drawing posted here, from two day's ago, is obviously more complex than the simple form of the end of a whale. I am open to discovery ― this is drawing about query. How do I make interesting compositions that reflect my intuitive and emotional life? In my April 4, 2016 blog post I reproduced an image of Rembrandt's amazing print, "Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves." Yesterday I made a drawing that has a central figure with outstretched limbs. This was not an intensional reference to a crucifixion. I am not surprised that internalized thoughts and images appear in my art, especially since I recently referenced it here in my blog. Another possible influence is Marc Chagall's "The White Crucifixion", which I saw recently at The Art Institute of Chicago. I believe it to be one of the few great modern crucifixions. Another marvelous crucifixion has always been important to me: Pablo Picasso's. (See both of these crucifixions below my work from yesterday). The painting "2016 No.4" is becoming more understandable. Clarity is not easy to find, but it can be found through work. This I believe. Yesterday's work was better than the day's before. It made more intuitive sense. The operator is finding self-knowledge. Drawings from 9/12/2015, all are pencil on paper, 16X20 inches
J.M.W. Turner, "Rain Steam and Speed", 1844 and "Intestinal Forms", 1990, both oil on canvas One hundred and forty-six years separate J.M.W. Turner's painting, "Rain Steam and Speed", from my painting, "Intestinal Forms". Despite the chronological distance between the two, I find similarity in the attitude in which they were created. Turner became more and more himself as he aged ("Rain Steam and Speed" is considered a "late" Turner, produced in 1844 when Turner was 69 years old). During my time away from making art I have been contemplating the manner in which I make art. Turner became himself by realizing, on canvas and paper, his deeply discerned intuitive knowing. I sometimes veer away from my own deeply intuitive knowing. I get distracted by searching for more knowledge. This quest for the ephemeral must end. When I return to painting I will follow the complexity of my internalized expressive self and make the art I was born and bred to make. This will be nurture and nature coming together, unified in my art. I admire Turner for accomplishing this in his lifetime. Other painters have also achieved this lofty success. Here I name a few other artists who I see as having succeeded: Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, Richard Diebenkorn, Alberto Giacometti, and James Ensor. These five are the ones that immediately come to mind, but of course there are others. The five I have named, along with J.M.W. Turner, are most on my mind as I seek my own redemption from the failure I witness when I seek knowledge, rather than perform my knowing.
Before I go, let me show you one of my favorite paintings by J.M.W. Turner, "Burning of the Houses of Parliament", 1834. This painting is also considered a "late" work of Turner's. "Burning of the Houses of Parliament" is much less abstract than "Rain Steam and Speed", and it was painted 10 years before "Rain Steam and Speed". It feels good to run into this without knowing where it's going. More precisely, I am following the lead of positive intuitive feedback. It is a feedback loop, not unlike one experienced with a microphone and an electrical audio amplifier. It is getting louder and louder, squealing in pleasure and pain. I am "getting real" with myself. If I have learned anything from my recent activity, it is that I enjoy moving my line across invented forms. If this is methodology, it is one of discovery of form through seek and find by line.
The painting, Tele-Vision, actually looks a little better here than during my efforts to Photoshop it toward accurate reproduction. This new state of Tele-Vision is much more complex than its previous state, and thus more impossible to reproduce well. It's those reds and oranges that cause havoc. Duplicating the nuances of these colors on a computer screen, lit (as they are) from behind, is impossible. However, I believe you get the idea behind these colors, and the overall feeling of a painting that is being made, more than ever before, as my drawings are made. I am allowing my intuitive ideas to take control, sorting them out through action and reaction. Saying this, I almost do not want you to look at yesterday's staid and rigid drawing. It is a funny one. The path I follow, from work to work, is more about questions than answers. The answers I get are not always admirable or appropriate. Yesterday's drawing misses because I lost interest in the answer to the question. I wanted to know if it would interest me to make a simple figure, fully rounded, mimicking a world of three-dimensional forms. Yesterday's drawing definitely is not an appropriate answer. This question was instigated by the second drawing of 8/1/2015.
Stephen King wrote several stories where the reason for tension in the story, and the reader's emotional commitment to the story line, is an artifice of ideas never fully explained. As example, this happens in his famous novel, which became a famous film, "The Shining." This kind of unexplained artifice is occurring in my recent painting, Flame. Most of my life I have been uncomfortable with this lack of known reasoning in fiction and art. Perhaps no longer. I am reassessing everything. I am making an effort to make sure one note properly follows another, but this does not mean I must fully intellectualize the reason that this is true. This brings me to something Leonard Bernstein said (see below). The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life to make sure that one note follows another...and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world. |
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May 2024
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