Category: Painfulness

Positively Negative

3/29/2019

Drawing 03·28·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Yesterday's studio session was a lot of me sitting and observing. Surprised I was at my having ignored the potency of negative space. I sometimes feel awash is quandary. Why did I so actively attack the positive forms as animators of my images? Why did I not look ardently at negative space as animator? I picked up a few books; I looked at images of works from de Kooning to Guston to Matisse. All of these artists, like me, tend to clog their canvases with marks, making negative space look like an afterthought. Their drawings, however, are different. Negative space is more important. (See drawings by these artists, below.)

Today, I offer you a drawing of mine (made yesterday). In it I use negative space effectively. Learning never ceases. Learning sometimes leaves me with a feeling of loss; Sometimes it hurts! Why did it take me so long, some many drawings, so many paintings, to realize the great emotional and intellectual value of negative space?

Willem de Kooning, "Untitled", charcoal on paper, 1966

Philip Guston, "Web", India Ink on Paper, 1975

Henri Matisse, "Lydia with Her Hair in a Net", pencil on paper, 1939

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Knowing & Not-Knowing

2/11/2019

"Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9, state 10), oil on canvas, 54x36 inches {"Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness which characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm.... an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction." -Saul Bellow, "Writers at Work: Third Series", 1967}

Drawing 02·10·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

The most painful part of being an artist is doubt. Everything completed could have gone a million different ways. Decisions were made along the way that steered each work of art one way or the other. If it went one way, the other is lost. I can never know the other possibility because the moment I finish a work I am newly educated; I think differently than before I began the work. Lost is truly lost, never to be regained. There is no possibility of repeating the moment of inspiration; beginnings are available only once. It is with this feeling of not-knowing, not-knowing other possible outcomes, that I declare the painting "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" complete.

Drawings have these death moments as well. Yesterday's drawing is excellent, but it is not so distant in my memory, so I wonder about the choices I did not make. Here is where memory heals doubt. Two days from now I will walk in the studio and be very happy with Drawing 02·10·2019. Today I look at it and wonder about the possibilities it did not follow. Not-knowing hurts!

Bad & Good & Better & Best

9/4/2017

"2017 No.12" (state 4), oil on canvas, 73x58 inches

Gnocchi may be surprising, but so is me. I am following a call of nature. A call that comes with dirt and glee. No image is perfect, but every image is informative. My problem is being scared and being scarred are not independent. One cannot unsee that which one has revealed. Being good or bad is not known till the experience is complete. The growth of me is the problem of me. I do not know what I do not know. As revelation occurs I feel my personal intimacy has been enhanced. The process is never enough. I am addicted.

The Value in Effort

4/23/2017

Drawing 04·22·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

The painfulness of being an artist is doing this activity in loneliness. Feedback, good or bad, rarely happens, except from one's own introspection. The problem, the pain of this, comes from distrust of oneself. There are good days and there are bad days. Trust is high, or trust is low. Today I feel good about yesterday's result. I am not saying this is the best of all possible drawings, but I do believe it has merit. The sweetest part of this was in the making. Several times I believed I had misdirected myself. I had to pull a stunt. I forced the drawing back to itself, demanded (as it was) by its own self-revelation. I did it. I made the effort. It eventually made sense. It works for me! This is value. Now I have cash in my brain. It is the currency that buys intuition. I know more, I see better than I did two days ago. Seeing better means the quality of decisions are better because they are better informed. I took two steps forward. The strong feeling of loneliness will come when the inevitable one step backward occurs. I will get through that moment. Then, with effort, I will take two steps forward.

Positively Negative

Knowing & Not-Knowing

Bad & Good & Better & Best

The Value in Effort

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