 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 7), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 02·23·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I wish it were easier. Always I wish for the same thing, easy. Never do I get it. This is work. This is effort. This is stepping strong, succeeding some of the time, failing often. The moments of success, at least the moments of "feeling successful," drive me to return and try again. While organizing the reproduction of yesterday's drawing for posting here, I felt failure. It did not sing the way I believed it had during yesterday's studio process. Did I go wrong? If my steps be honest and true, there is no wrong, there is just journey.
Yesterday's studio work fell short of my ambition. That's OK. It has informed me. I return today to make better.
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 Drawing 02·21·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 02·20·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 02·13·2021 (state 3), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches These three drawings were begun, re-stated; they are a week's worth of effort. In, out, and about was my journey; two steps forward, one back, two forward. I arrive here. These drawings are keys to my future. I am, more than anything else, an organizer. I need to make real. The reality I seek is available through the process of making art. There is no end-game. There is progress and steady clarification. I am who I am. I am organizing myself as I organize my images. Making clear is most important. These drawings announce my acceptance of a process never to be fulfilled. The journey is exciting, willfully reflective of self-query. I am in the act of becoming, moving with each work of art toward fulfillment.
 Drawing 01·08·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The word "manifest" means "clear or obvious to the eye." I believe I can see it coming, just as we saw the terrible attack of Trump's cultish herds on our nation's capital coming, that insurrection of January 6, 2021.
I can see where I am going. I can see it coming. It will happen, but making real my internal insight is no simple task. Wending my way from yesterday's drawing to the best of all possible drawings is a task confused by possibilities. There is not a clear and constant route. I must follow instinct because intellect is not smart enough. It is trial and error, two steps forward one back two forward. That describes the journey that my intellect must follow. I hope today I can take a true step in the right direct. Yesterday I believe I did a step forward, but a little one. Yesterday's drawing is informative, smart, sings on key. It is not the most uncomplicated note I have sung, but it is true. A more basic note can be sung, one whose truth and clarity cannot be denied. I seek fundamental truth. I will not relent.  Drawing 10·15·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am working hard to make real the success I seek. Yet success is essentially impossible, at least essential success is impossible. This trek I am on leads somewhere, but not to a where that is known or defined. Given that truth, of truth being impossible, true success is impossible. Along the way, snippets of it can be, and are, viewed. This happened yesterday. Despite my inability to be totally happy with any one work of art that I make, I am happy that a step I made has a glimmer of truth in it. Each step is mushy, without the solidity of full truth, but yesterday's work did yield enough of a true answer to impassion me with the desire to go back and try again. I will do that now.
 Drawing 10·04·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·04·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The drawings I show today are very good. Today I am also looking at "now" and at "then". Today I posted one more of the many paintings and wall sculptures I made from 1987 through 1991 (see CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ 1987-91). Amazing to me is the quality and scope of the work I did during those formative years of my artistic career. Below I show the work I posted on my CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ today. My journey is endless; I shall journey as long as I can pick up my tools and do my work.  "Stretch & Bag", oil/cloth/plaster/wood, 60x70x6inches, 1991  Drawing 09·04·2020 No.2 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Today I show an incredibly rich drawing. It is a remake of the second drawing from 09/04/2020. I once was a Wunderkind. Today I am a laborer in love and mindfulness. If you doubt my having been a Wunderkind, visit my CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ 1987-91; those were my formative years. There you will see my first personal pictures, those made on my own, after I had left the mentorship of Philip Guston.
Yesterday confirms I have arrived. I am capable. I am able to make work that expresses the momentary me. In my early years I had found this too, but self-doubt, and my need to be more than an artist, had separated me from the quest for pure and selfish self-expression. I wanted to live fully, have children, have a great love, and teach the young. I did that. Now I fully return to my selfish quest to express myself. My recent drawings are marks in my journey. I am now taking one remarkable step at time toward being all I can be as artist and self-expressionist.  Drawing 09·04·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·04·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Drawing No.1: too complicated? Drawing No.2: too simple? Yes, no, maybe? Each is a step along the way, doubling as art, science, research, judgements, and questions; each remain a step, not a destination.
 "Doublethink" (2019 No.3, state 3), oil on canvas, 58x58 inches {"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them." -George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty Four" (1949)} The biggest pain of living is lapsing into the pain that is time-driven. Acknowledging time makes one want to hurry. Time has an arrow that pokes holes in the present. Holes are absences. Nonexistence is the consequence. Here I am. I have returned to painting Doublethink. Doublethink is appropriately titled because my return brings the baggage of pent-up wanting. Doublethink is in a good place. It is re-educating me. I stepped into it, which is the most difficult part of the journey. It feels like a first step, but it is actually the third step.
 Drawing 06·20·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Self discovery does not occur on one moment on one day. It is a never ending process. Becoming oneself is possible and impossible. It is possible to be more oneself with every effort toward self-realization. Complete selfhood cannot be achieved. It is the journey that excites. Similar to discovery new geographies, insights in selfhood give exhilaration in living.
Yesterday's drawing is very different than the one from the day before. I feel fear when my drawings go so dark; scary when I tend toward blackness. I am a believer of light as omnipresent. Perception of shadow is dependent upon light, less of it, but still there. I am hoping to paint today. I continue to deal with my exhibitions, promoting them, preparing to take one down and put one up. I will be glad when the studio, the making of art, is my primary artistic concern. Soon...  "Weoman" (2018 No.3; state 11), oil on canvas, 43x48 inches ("I could not get a rhyme for Roman, And was obliged to call it Weoman." -Marjorie Fleming, "Sonnet")  Drawing 06·08·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches There are mixed-emotions when a painting is called "finished." Weoman has reached that place. After eleven states, Weoman is "done." A painting in process is a thrilling relationship; similar to the process of getting to know a new acquaintance. Similar to a relationship with a soon to be valued friend; it never ends. Paintings do get called "complete." This does not happen with a valued friend. Like a good friend, a good painting will instruct forever, upon every re-visit. A completed painting is static in its elements; a good friend is never static in any way. The happy part of calling a painting "finished" is the consequential opening of space and time to begin a new painting, a new journey, with all the excitement that is inherent in getting to know a new acquaintance.
The drawing shown today has gray reproduced on its ground, which is not true in the real drawing on Stonehenge WHITE paper. |
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February 2021
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