 Drawing 01·24·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The continuity that is my art-making is the many questions I ask. It would be nice if this was a one way street; it would be nice if all questions led up the street, to higher ground. It is a winding road. It is a night-time highway; black is the sky. I do have lights. Those lights are NOT able to see around the next bend. The path I take is illuminated by the questions I ask, the answers I give. The questions see forward a tiny bit on this winding path; the answers may or may not help me move forward. Some answers are missteps. Occasionally an answer is like a crack in the road. I stumble. Always I get up, I question again. Every so often the answer I give is a great one; I move forward, up the street, to higher ground. Yesterday's drawing was such an answer. It questions the possibility of light as perceived by drawing on white paper. It uses contrast in values. I have made a central form filled with light. It acts as a beacon in a dark world, lit by the artifice that is perceived as light cast across the landscape in which it sits. The risk I took to discover this is the reward of truth; it says the path I have chosen has merit.
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 Drawing 12·06·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Three million strokes and counting.... Yesterday's drawing celebrates the marking of a white piece of paper with graphite from a pencil. Later yesterday, as I rested reading in my living room, my arm let me know it had been taxed. I had been enjoying finding forms, finding surface, finding space, finding light, and finding composition! This simultaneity-filled activity is a celebration of mindfulness. The more I do it the longer I can sustain it! This is "practice", as defined by veteran meditators. The Buddha would be proud of me! I have not obtained Buddhahood, but I am moving in that direction. Shravasti Dhammika, a Theravada monk, writes:  Drawing 09·22·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One more worry: Is my work too complicated, too subtle? Is it beyond the grasp of most viewers? I see visual connections across wide expanses of canvas and paper. I do not think I am deluding myself. Yesterday's drawing does work well. There is a solid core, there are rhythms and rhymes, there is movement and motion, there is value contrast, there are a large variety of forms, there is light, there is structural integrity. So, why is it not a hit? I believe it does hit well. Then why are viewers not begging that it be put in public venues? What are they not begging to see it up close and personal? Art that speaks truth should be seen. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh wondered the same.
In yesterday's blog I quoted a New York Times article from March 22, 1992. The following paragraph, from the same article, is relevant to my worries of today: "Cezanne's career might have been as grim as Van Gogh's -- and as short -- had he not been the son of a banker and, ultimately, his heir. As it is, his progress from clumsy Expressionism to a sublime fusion of the monumental and the ethereal has attracted scholars from Roger Fry to Meyer Schapiro and John Rewald." (from the New York Times article, ART; How Cezanne Evokes a Bach Fugue, published March 22, 1992)  "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 2), oil on canvas, 55.5x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 09·11·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am all over this. Incredible to me, the creator, this game of making-art is in control. My knowledge can be plucked from everywhere; it surrounds me; my brain is on fire; omnipresent are ideas that can be identified as true. This does not make my task faster, easier. In fact the road just got bumpier; my speed has slowed because there is so much I can do with every mark I make. It is much more than marks. It is composition and form and light and color and repetition and pattern et cetera et cetera. Crazy full of possibilities but also crazy specific with solutions that actually make sense. Solutions that speak truly, speak authentically, are several and few. Finding them is my task.
 "Along for the Ride" (2018 No.7, state 14), oil on canvas, 65x53 inches {"Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong... and just go along for the ride." - Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"} The painting Along for the Ride is very close to completion. It has a major problem. It is in the lower left. It is not the composition. It is the color used to create the shadow on the orange object; it is too dark and does not ring true as representation of the shadow it suggests. This will be fixed today.
Once in a while a painting comes along that is emblematic of knowledge acquired/knowledge questioned. Along for the Ride is such a painting. It is immensely important to my oeuvre. I will proceed out of this painting with greater focus on my own intentions; intentions animated by deeply perceived original consciousness. I discover what I know through actions upon questions; questions that originate from the experience of my existence. Experience is compounded knowledge. Knowledge is a compendium of reaction to experiences; positive, negative, and neutral.  Drawing 07·26·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It is simply a great drawing. You have to see it to believe it! My work is hitting harder in all the ways art should hit a viewer. Yesterday's drawing is substantive; emotive in texture, emotive in form, emotive in composition, emotive in light and in darkness. One dictionary definition of texture is "the character or appearance of a fabric as determined by the arrangement and thickness of its threads." This happens in Drawing 07·26·2018, except the threads are replaced with pencil marks. Wow & Zow! Sticking with it makes sense. Even the most unlikely of avenues, when followed with ardor and passion, result in excellent results. I quote again Oliver Wendall Holmes: "Every calling is great when greatly pursued."
 "Adjective" (2018 No.4, state 7), oil on canvas, 63x61 inches {"As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out." - Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" (1894) chapter 11}  Drawing 06·27·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The information revealed by light becomes visual knowledge. It is this way with my work. The painting Adjective is sending me a message, "Make me known! Make me Light!" And so I am. Adjective has taken a big jump in that direction. It grew a few inches too!
I find yesterday's drawing congested. Naturally I will react to that today. I will a more sparely penciled drawing.  "Weoman" (2018 No.3; state 8), oil on canvas, 35x42 inches ("I could not get a rhyme for Roman, And was obliged to call it Weoman." -Marjorie Fleming, "Sonnet")  Drawing 05·29·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Sometimes when a painting like Weoman appears I think I am more like Giorgio Morandi than Pablo Picasso. Actually, I am becoming more unlike Morandi or Picasso; I am becoming me. When I write about being "like" an artist, I am referring to my interests, my concerns. It is becoming obvious to me that I am hyper-concerned with light as subject unto itself. This does not diminish my concern with three-dimensional form, space, and composition. Weoman is looking good, but I need to step back, pause, look, contemplate, make sure it is as good as it can be. There may be one or two more states coming.
 "Weoman" (2018 No.3; state 2), oil on canvas, 35x42 inches ("I could not get a rhyme for Roman, And was obliged to call it Weoman." -Marjorie Fleming, "Sonnet")  Drawing 05·19·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Crosshairs be damned! There is no way I can site down a barrel to take this one out; to make it complete and final. It will not be killed off! I am writing about the painting Weoman. It is as difficult as the invented language of its title. As I work, it makes its own course, wandering, zig-zagging back and forth, insisting it should not be put down. It will thicken, fatten-up, become alive and brilliant. I will follow it there.
Yesterday's drawing is a study for Weoman. I realized its light must come from the front, spraying itself around the forms, casting shadows behind and to the left; Thus this simple drawing.  Drawing 02·08·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches One of my most remarkable self-discoveries is an emotive image does not require realistic light. There is no need for faithful reference because it is the power of the image and the power of the forms that strike the viewer as real. Reality, accurate to the world we walk in, is unnecessary. The reality of the image is all that is in front of the viewer and therefore it is accepted as reality. Nobody does this better than Anselm Kiefer. His near-abstract images glow with light. They are lightly colored, mostly grey and white, yet their realities are emotionally potent. I learn as I make.  Anselm Kiefer, "Aurora", mixed media on burlap, 110×150 inches 2017  Anselm Kiefer, "Bohemia by the Sea", mixed media on burlap, 75 inches×18.5 feet, 1996  Anselm Kiefer, "The Bad Mothers", mixed media on canvas, 2011 |
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