 Drawing 10·15·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5, state 7), oil on canvas, 48.5x31.75 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} Today's title is Wonky. As adjective, wonky is defined as "having or characterized by an enthusiastic or excessive interest in the specialized details of a particular subject or field." I'm obsessed by my quest to discover the subject of my art.
Yesterday's work is full of specialized details, all searching enthusiastically. I am excessively interested in detailed minutia. Every single part on my art pursues mindful visualization. I am getting better at this. Consequently, each mark takes its time, developing slowly, touch by touch, mark by mark. Yesterday's drawing is full of mindful spirit. I approached it as I do meditation. Marks were allowed to dictate their own time coming; they slowly searched, maturing till truth be told. Truth is dictated by intuitive decision-making, only when correctness is perceived do I move on. If I misstep in my journey, erasure is used. Normally methodology is two steps forward, one step back, two forward, et cetera. Not yesterday! The marks came mindfully slow, but the product came more quickly than usual. Mindfulness was more present than ever before. Thus I achieved more in one studio session than usual. I achieved a very good drawing, and I painted well too — both in the same day.
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 "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5, state 6), oil on canvas, 48.5x31.75 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} I control many parts of my life; I do this to support a long lasting and healthy future. Healthy future is supported by good diet, exercise, and financial security. I work hard at each. Control does help in the quest for excellent physical health, but it is not good for excellent art-making.
Art making is spiritual. I am interested making art rich in spirit. True Spirit means making real my deepest nature. My deepest nature is intellect and emotions; an immense blend of stuff that sings my truths, my wishes, my angst, and my fears. Some might call this personality, but I must qualify: external personality does not always speak the truths hidden in the more complex, internal personality. In making-art I am trying to make real my internal personality. Succeeding in this endeavor means displaying reality. I struggle to be free, I struggle to make real. My internal personality is a bus-load of stuff. The bus needs to crash through the barrier. It is my job to make what I know into what I see. Allowing the crash, allowing the barrier to be destroyed, is letting go of controls, lying down the barrier, making real, allowing the bus load of stuff to empty into view. Yesterday I took one small step. I allowed the paint to go on canvas in surges of truth-making. I sought seeing reality in front of me. The barrier was less than before.  Drawing 10·10·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5, state 5), oil on canvas, 48.5x31 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} This activity of living, and of making art, is done well if understood as escape. There are many brambles and bushes and impediments in one's path to enlightenment. Escaping is cutting away the cage that surrounds oneself. This cage exists because one's experience is predicated on a world full of righteous ideas; ideas that must not be trusted; ideas that have not been tested; ideas that have been accepted by minds both good and bad. Self-discovery is separation of the trustworthy from the bogus.
I burst into the making of yesterday's drawing desperate for escape. I began it as no other beginning. That beginning is buried in the rubble that is now this drawing. This is what is left after an intense struggle to be free of my past. Did I succeed? Somewhat, yes! Completely, no! It is a good drawing. It is a step in a direction that makes sense to me. Incomplete the journey must remain. My painting challenged my norms as well. I am moving, although the progress is slow and uneven. I reward myself with the idea that I have made progress.  "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5, state 4), oil on canvas, 48.5x31 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer on his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"}  Drawing 10·04·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My last month or two have seen me querying myself, my motives, the good and the bad of what I have done, the efficacy of my self-rebellion, and my talent. Suddenly I don't care. I am here. This is a good place. I will do it. I will make art. I will follow myself into the abyss or not, i.e., This is acceptance. I am full into the journey; I will go where my unknown path leads me.
Yesterday my work had the spirit of self-confidence. I acted with resolution and with knowledge. This is not a judgement on the quality of the work, but on the value of doing what I am doing. A value that is personal, that is mine. My making-art felt centered and mindful, and it looks good from here. Nice!  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 10), oil on canvas, 38.5x62.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} I can feel more than I can see. Yes, you can see the alterations I made to the painting, "Sentence". The changes are great and wonderful, but they are not as starkly in revolt as I know intuitionally inside myself. I am welling up, like a water ballon on verge of explosion. But, I am loyal too. Taking on a civil war is difficult for me. I want change. I need to rebel against my establishment, but the rebellion cannot happen instantaneously; that is not the way I am. I act with discomfort and allegiance. The two are not incompatible. I have a past, I have a future. Both must be understood. I am the caretaker of both. The future does not divulge itself without its past. The past is full of deeds — some successes, some failures — ALL informative. The ALL drives me into the knowing required to act well, right here, right now.
 "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 9), oil on canvas, 37x61.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} Freedom is not being burdened by tangled-up ideas. Art should be made by the newly sighted. It is better to think without knowledge until a white canvas appears. Yesterday was tough. I worked to untangle the mess I had made to the painting "Sentence" — today I show state 9; I am far from being done with it. Metamorphic rebellions are not made by acceptance. Nothing I have done escapes doubt. Examination and evaluation are never conclusive.
 Drawing 09·18·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches A clarity of purpose is overwhelming me. I am looking with assiduous terror, as if I have just finished my twelfth cup of coffee. Am I mad? Yesterday's drawing is not there yet. No drawing, no painting, will be ever be there yet. But, I can feel myself approaching resolution, a resolution I know will never happen. Is this the definition of madness? I am doing the same thing over and over; the difference between my behavior and madness are the results, they are never the same.
 Drawing 09·12·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Sentence" (2019 No.4, state 7), oil on canvas, 37x61.5 inches {"And you’d spend years trying to decipher the sentence, until finally you’d understand it. But after a while you’d realize you got it wrong, and the sentence meant something else entirely." - Tadeusz Dąbrowski, from the poem "Sentence"} I have to pull back from doing. I need to take time; let it go, internalize.
 "Gunfire Across My Consciousness" (2019 No.5), oil on canvas, 47x30.5 inches {"My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull... Images gunfire across my consciousness... I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse." -Christopher Nolan, Irish Writer of his reasons for writing "The Eye of the Clock", in November 8, 1987 "Observer"} Astute readers of my blog will notice the title of my newly begun painting has changed, from yesterday's intended title to today's actual title. I introduce to you, Gunfire Across My Consciousness. Technically it is oil on canvas. However, the drawing on the canvas is oil based markers, colors copper and gold. Never before have I used oil-based markers to begin a painting. Never before have l used the colors copper or gold. The thought is this: My inculcated ideas must be challenged. Hence comes oil markers, copper and gold, and the methodology used to begin this painting. The methodology is not simple alteration of technique, it is change in attitude. I challenge myself. My mind acts quickly, feels quickly. I made an effort to hang in there during its making, I allowed the marks to happen like gunshots hitting the canvas, straight out of the avalanche that is my mind's activity. (See below the full quote from Christopher Nolan's interview, published in the November 8, 1987 issue of the Observer.) "My real motive is to describe how my brain-damaged life is as normal for me as my friends able-bodied life is to them. My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down into my lap. Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse. Try then to imagine how frustrating it is to give expression to that avalanche in efforts of one great nod after the other."  Drawing 09·04·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Work is required. That's all I got. My anxiety surrounding the work I am required to do is very present. Yesterday's drawing is a good one, but it also has a lot of open space, a lot of negative space. Do each of those negative spaces sing their propers notes, notes that radiate emotion and intellectual satisfaction? Blank spaces bring fear; they scarily call for resolution, either by mind or mark. Yesterday I chose mind over mark. Successful? I think I will go the other way today. I want to see which way is more satisfactory, open spaces filled by the mind, or mark filled spaces filled by a road map of specks and speckles.
The Irish writer, Christopher Nolan (born 1965, not the well known British screenwriter) said, when speaking of the reasons for writing The Eye of the Clock, "My real motive is to describe how my brain-damaged life is as normal for me as my friends able-bodied life is to them. My mind is just like a spin-dryer at full speed; my thoughts fly around my skull while millions of beautiful words cascade down into my lap. Images gunfire across my consciousness and while trying to discipline them I jump in awe at the soul-filled bounty of my mind's expanse. Try then to imagine how frustrating it is to give expression to that avalanche...." Today I begin a new painting, which will be entitled, "Gunfire Across My Consciousness". |
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