 "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 02·13·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Going home is going back to one's roots. I am doing this. In fact, I am returning to the roots of classical art. I have tried, repeatedly, to defeat classicism. Picasso accepted classicism as truth. Picasso gave into the reality that classicism had determined the best way to engage the viewer. Classicism was centuries old before Picasso got here, even older before I got here. Classism had challenged many ways of presenting imagery. Picasso accepted that classicism had succeeded. The invention, and the success of Modern Art, is not about compositional challenge; that had already been done. No matter the degree of distance Picasso put between his images and naturalism, the force of his compositions always accepted classicism's compositional dictates. Every image Picasso presents is "in your face," "straight ahead," composed to engage by laterally depicting his images within the defined rectangle. No matter the wildness of Picasso's forms, his compositions do not disturb the viewer's natural way of digesting an image. The wildness of Picasso's image are attenuated by his acceptance of pure compositional classism. I am now doing the same. It took me longer to get to here, to this insight, then it did Picasso (or Van Gogh or Matisse or Philip Guston or Willem de Kooning, for that matter). Those five (Picasso, Van Gogh, Matisse, Guston, de Kooning) are my heroes, my main mentors. Four of them were my mentors from a distance, but Philip Guston mentored me in person. Take a look at today's drawing. I accept classical composition. Why, I ask, has it taken me so long? This acceptance frees me to invent via form, color, scale, shape, and space. It frees me because I accept the basic rules that are classical composition. No more will I fight the tenets of classical composition. Below I show you two daring works of art. They do not challenge "Classical Composition." The do challenge how we see. Both of these paintings creating a reality that challenges our visual world through imagery, not through composition.  Pablo Picasso, "Big Heads", oil on canvas, 194.5x129 cm, 1969  Philip Guston, "As it Goes", oil on canvas, 1978  Drawing 02·05·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 6), 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"} I have many fears. One of my biggest is fear of falling short on exhibiting the sophistication of my emotions and intellect. I do not want to compromise sophistication for clarity. If I get too sophisticated, I fear I will confuse, rather than elucidate. Yesterday I took a step toward making clarity and sophistication occur simultaneously. These two works exhibit clarity of intellect and emotions AND sophistication of intellect and emotions. There is a tie that internally binds the images into one clear piece of information, while also allowing sophisticated data and information to be exhibited. These feel a proper step to me.
 "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 2), oil on canvas, 49¾ x58½ inches {We only live between before we are and what we were. In the lost negative you exist... Three ages in a flash: the same child in the same picture, he, I, you..." - Robert Lowell, "For Sheridan"}  Drawing 01·31·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·31·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches What's it all about? I am not sure. I know I must seek. I believe I am finding. This is real stuff, images with meaning. Am I delusional? I can not answer. I do know it feels right and good to seek, to find, to deliberate. I am alive!
 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 4), 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"} The surprise is daily change, not daily worry. It is worry that causes change. Worry is symptomatic of doubt. Always there is doubt. The last three posts have shown six alterations. These came in drawings, and in the painting shown today. This painting's title is apt: Startle & Lay Siege.
 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 3), 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 12·18·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Yesterday was a day of alteration toward clarity and better expression. The drawing is a revisit of one from December 18, 2020, the painting is this year's.
 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 2), 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 01·17·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It should not startle, that truth-telling becomes insight and vice-versa. I am waking-up as I am working. Art, and being here being now, are the same thing. Why then, I continually ask, is it so difficult to get to absolute truth? Truth feels like a moving target, but, perhaps, it is I who am moving, while the target is still.
These two, the painting and the drawing I show today, appear to me to be extremely honest. Yet, I am unrelenting in my questioning. I ask, "Is this integrity?" This question drives me to the next answer. Everything I do is a double check on the last thing I did.  Drawing 01·17·2021, pencil on paper, 18x24 inches  "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 1), oil on canvas, 49¾ x58½ inches {We only live between before we are and what we were. In the lost negative you exist... Three ages in a flash: the same child in the same picture, he, I, you..." - Robert Lowell, "For Sheridan"} These is a change in me. I am more clear on one fact: clarity of purpose is tantamount. When I was a young painter I felt great satisfaction in finding reaction of space and form to one another within the rectangles that are drawings and paintings. Somehow I misplaced that most deep concern, replacing it with the quality of my draftsmanship. Here I am in my objective, becoming young again, These two works, shown today, are a self-call to justice. Be clear, be oneself, return and renew! As Robert Lowell wrote, "Three ages in a flash: the same child in the same picture, he, I, you..." FOR SHERIDAN - Robert Lowell  "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 1), 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 01·08·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·08·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches As old as I am, as much I have investigated life and living, I continue to be surprised by my vigor and the consistency of my vying for truth. Yesterday was an awesome day, filled with vigor, a day I competed eagerly with myself to achieve a clearer personal vision, one fully immediate and self-reflective. Right now, I am off to do more! You judge the success, and the failure. I am in the midst of investigation; I do not want to be judgmental.
 "Stubborn & Egotistical" (2020 No.4, state 10), oil on canvas, 67½x55 inches {"If we've learned anything from the best-selling 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' children's book series, it's that those who see themselves surrounded by idiots are usually idiots themselves." -Jakob Augstein, "Stubborn and Egotistical" (Spiegel Online, 3/25/2013)}  "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 14), oil on canvas, 56½x47½ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" - anonymous}  Drawing 01·02·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The first studio session of 2021 brought completion of these two paintings, both begun in 2020: "Stubborn & Egotistical" and "Clever Liars". Looking back (thankfully), at 2020, reminds the reason for such titles. It was a year dominated by personalities and pandemic. The personalities more or less failed us, altering our society forever; the pandemic more or less devastated us, altering our society forever. We are here now. We work for better days. We proceed with optimism. Better days are coming.
I am optimistic. The two paintings, and the drawing, I show here today, are very good. They are in-your-face personal realism. These images cannot be denied. 2020 was a great conduit for me, leading from relative confusion to realize clarity. I am glad to be here, to be now. FYI: The drawing is mislabeled with date 01·02·2020, It was made yesterday, 01/02/2021. I will change it on the original. |
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February 2021
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