![]() "Honorable Terms" (2021 No.7, state 10), oil on canvas, 52x59⅞ inches, {"The roots of reason are imbedded in feelings — feelings that have formed and accumulated and developed over a lifetime of personality-shaping. These feelings are not a source of weakness but a resource of strength. They are not there for occasional using but are inescapable. To know what we think, we must know how we feel. It is feeling that shapes belief and forms opinion. It is feeling that directs the strategy of argument. It is our feelings, then, with which we must come to honorable terms." - James E. Miller, Jr., "Word, Self, Reality: The Rhetoric of Imagination" (1972)} You have to see it to believe it. Reproduction does, indeed, suck. Reproduction cannot represent the fine quality of a fine work of art. The more nuanced my work becomes the more my effort at adequate reproduction fails. The drawing I show you today took me three days to complete. That is long time for me. It is a complex drawing; it is subtle and nuanced. The painting, "Honorable Terms", has not changed since last I showed it here. I photographed "Honorable Terms" a second time, it remains in state 10. This reproduction of "Honorable Terms" is much better than last I showed here.
![]() "Honorable Terms" (2021 No.7, state 10), oil on canvas, 52x59⅞ inches, {"The roots of reason are imbedded in feelings — feelings that have formed and accumulated and developed over a lifetime of personality-shaping. These feelings are not a source of weakness but a resource of strength. They are not there for occasional using but are inescapable. To know what we think, we must know how we feel. It is feeling that shapes belief and forms opinion. It is feeling that directs the strategy of argument. It is our feelings, then, with which we must come to honorable terms." - James E. Miller, Jr., "Word, Self, Reality: The Rhetoric of Imagination" (1972)} It takes darkness to make light. This is true for canvas and paper. In the real world, the actuality of light is electromagnetic waves from an energy source. Paintings and drawings have no energy source, except the intellectual and emotional energy of construction. Thus comes the painting "Honorable Terms". A note about reproduction: There is nothing so difficult to reproduce as subtlety of nuance within the darker values of a drawing or a painting. I am intrigued with gradations of light found within darkness. So was Albert Pinkham Ryder. ![]() "The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019 No.1, state 3), oil on canvas, 66x59.5 inches {"I believe there is a golden thread which alone gives meaning to the political history of the West, from Marathon to Alamein, from Solon to Winston Churchill and after. This I chose to call the doctrine of liberty under the law." -Anthony Sampson, "The Changing Anatomy of Britain", 1982} Just when I believe I know what I am thinking about — thinking I actually know something — along comes the loop. I am circling, using my body of knowledge to find a little truth by moving a blank canvas to something filled with intelligible marks. My target keeps adjusting itself; it looks different today than it did yesterday! I am in a problem solving loop, looking for answers that make sense. It is the classic two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, et cetera.... I believe this process is better described as spiraling toward an answer. There is a lot of brainstorming; trying this, trying that. No answer is ever absolutely correct; no absolute truth is ever found! I will be making a lot more paintings. This is a mystery novel, full of intrigue! There is joy in Mudville. Casey did not strike out, but the endings keep getting better. "The Doctrine of Liberty" is becoming an excellent painting. It speaks more truth with every working session. I am becoming a better artist. My paintings are singing more clearly, with greater volume. This loudness is not about contrast; it is about subtlety. Nuance speaks more loudly than differentiation or incongruity. Casey at the Bat ![]() "The Intervening Tick" (2018 No.6, state 7), oil on canvas, 49x33 inches {"Is that where wise men want us to live; in that intervening tick, the tiny slot that occurs after you have spent hours searching downtown for that new club and just before you give up and head back home?" - Billy Collins, "The Present", from "New Ohio Review" 2017} I am a man of intense nuance, questioning each and every stroke of color, form, and light reflectance. Yesterday I completed my last pass upon the painting The Intervening Tick. Regrettably I also looked again at Along for the Ride; I have to call that painting done too! I always see nuances that could be better served. I should move on, so I will, decisively so! Tomorrow I will strip my last two canvases from my work wall and begin new ones. Lessons learned must go somewhere; that somewhere is now, not looking back. This is me counseling myself to begin new paintings.
Yesterday's drawing is me trying to find the next step that makes sense. This drawing is helpful as preparation for the nervous leap I will take tomorrow on newly hung blank canvases. After sixteen efforts, the painting 2017 No.14 is on the edge of being finished. It is in these moments, just prior to completion, that my excitement runs highest. I having been chasing this game across the savanna; I have caught up. There it is! With skill the kill can be had. It is time to be careful and bold. It is time to pay attention to nuance and detail.
The drawing shown was made on January 30, 2018. It is claustrophobically clogged with rock-like bolder-like forms. Relief from this clog of forms occurs at the top of composition. It is masterful. I am beginning to accept my mastery as authentic. The world of my pictures wants to impinge upon the world of my living. Immediacy calls for reverberation. It brings attention. There is intimacy in my request. Yesterday's drawing is a surreal blend of ground and sky. They don't mix well. This is different from the reverb seen in state 4 of the painting 2017 No.14. I know, despite our inability to see it, there is commonality of approach. The drawing and the painting ask for attention using surface junction versus surface disjunction. Vocal disturbance enhances the nuance of a signal's meaning; this is called reverb. I am using its visual equivalent. Of course my analogy is impure. The idea is not. I hope you are looking because you are disturbed by my visual means and intrigued by my visual content.
I often worry I am too much into detail. I agressively search to find, thus I am overwhelmed by the activity of seeking nuance. Do I enjoy it? I do. Yesterday's drawing is full of finesse. It surprises me with its clarity of forms, its clarity in shadows cast (both by the forms on ground and on the surfaces of the forms themselves). Spatial play is animated by light. The forms are positioned by their surface values as well as by the shadows they cast on the ground. (We all know the white paper is actually as flat as flat can be.) Am I a dunderhead because I wonder too much? No, this is the intricacy demanded by sophisticated problem solving.
Out-loud thinking is becoming obsolete. Processing never dies. Telling the truth is mandatory, albeit nearly impossible. Verbal truth is more difficult than visual truth. Words are like nails. Images, not so much. Images are full of nuance. Nuance is required to communicate clearly, precisely. Deeds are a test of veracity. Images can be good or images can be bad. I am uncomfortable looking at yesterday's visual activity. That is helpful. It leaves me wanting more. The unravelling mystery calls me back. It's like a good mystery novel, the ending is obscured because of factual insufficiency. I must return to unravel that which is known yet not apparent.
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December 2023
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