Right when I think I understand, that I got it down and easy, I find I do not know nearly as much as I momentarily supposed. Thus comes the drawing I post today. In organization and approach, it looks and feels the opposite from the drawing I posted yesterday. How can this happen? It is not for me to question process. I am committed to acceptance of intuitive processing. One drawing is followed by the next; the relationship of one to the next can be deciphered in retrospect. I dd not really like retrospection because it is looks backwards. I wish to follow the here and now. That is my path. When I look I see the stepping stones right there, in the now!
"Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 20), 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"} The effort to make grand continues. Just as weather produces days of sunshine and days of precipitation, so does my art produce. Richness and fullness are being found. My heavens are opening in sunshine bringing clarity. My work is going well. My behavior is changing. I am not forcing this to happen. It rolls in like weather. There are forces at work, highs and lows, snow and sun; I keep showing up, looking for melting so I may walk without slipping. The path is there. The snow clears, a naked path is revealed. Working in patience is the key.
"Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4, state 17), 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 never promised you a rose garden, but I do promise the gift of quandary; give, take, wonder, and real; loss, gain, glory and pain; questions answered quickly, slowly, perhaps not at all; the thrust of the brush and the quietude of the touch — it is all here for your consumption and for my journey.
Thus we come to state 17 of "Something Else Entirely" (2019 No.4). This one, I fear, is old and new. I wish for always new; that would not fit the narrative of a life led step by step. "Something Else Entirely" is closer to becoming old. I am closer to beginning a new one. The end here will take a few more steps to obtain. I am willing. I am discovering I also am able; I have the ability to discover this painting's requirements, I have the means to make them real, thus bringing this painting to final rest. The mystery continues to unfold and unravel. Here is not easy to know, despite it being present and accounted for, it is not seen without pre-colored glasses. Thus work must be done. Yesterday's drawing is such a work. It is a working model. In other words, it is not an end but a means. I am on my path and I know not where it goes. My reaction to yesterday's drawing is good, which is important because it demonstrates I took a good step.
"Inertia to Movement" (2019 No.6, state 1), oil on canvas, 64.5x64.75 inches {"Emotion is the moment when steel meets flint and a spark is struck forth, for emotion is the chief source of consciousness. There is no change from darkness to light, or from inertia to movement, without emotion." -Carl G. Jung (1875-1961), "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious", 1955, translation R.F.C Hull} Yesterday was an important day. I began a new painting, "Inertia to Movement". I have been seeking a more direct approach to exuding emotion in my work. Mostly my search has been through drawing, but yesterday I took a big step in finding emotion in painting as well. This first state of "Inertia to Movement" exhibits simplicity in search of clarity. I will walk carefully in the making of this painting, step by invented step. My intention is to be fully mindful, fully present, during its pathway to full blossom.
Dredging truth from the bottom of my Atman is difficult; not easy because the sedimentary truth is ridiculously enigmatic, obscured by layers of steps and missteps. Then there was yesterday. I made a great effort to dredge truth. It was good practice. I opened myself to possibilities, left behind some of my self-inflicted education. This is practice, like meditation. The more I do it the easier it is; the more I do it the better I recognize my missteps and my false narratives.
Another thing happened. I have been complaining of frustration. In my 9/1/2019 blog post I wrote, "My frustration is obvious. I have never fully accepted Jackson Pollock's ultimate work as good work. To me, the drip paintings look born from frustration. I always wanted my work to be born from knowledge and skill. Perhaps I need to wake up, accept frustration as useful." A friend wrote to me: "...your art is the product of frustration. When you quit being frustrated you will take happily to the hammock on the porch, beer in hand, spinning yarns to the birds. By the way, they won't listen and you won't care. Seriously, do you think for a moment that El Greco wasn't angry, disturbed, thoroughly riddled with frustration?" Right On! Funny it is, I find this, the last day of my solo exhibition at Bromfield Gallery (Boston), a Good Thing! I just want to get back to my daily routine of making art. I am almost there. Next week my last solo show of this summer begins at Lyme New Hampshire's Converse Free Library (opens July 8). The library will exhibit mostly drawings, and a couple paintings. The Summer Juried Exhibition at AVA Gallery (Lebanon, NH) will exhibit my painting "How's It Gonna End" and a drawing (opens July 12).
Yesterday's drawing is massively worked. It took three days! This complicated manner of working on drawings is a new thing for me. Intuition is driving my steps. My path is revealing itself, surprise by surprise. My major artistic struggle right now is staying open to instinctive possibilities. If I touch success I discover grandness of light on forms and between forms. My effort is a struggle for enlightenment. I am working to be fully aware of everything, from the emotional potency of negative space to the emotional potency of forms and light. A piece a paper is an artifice of light, form, and negative space, but it absolutely is not an artifice of my personal awareness. My art measures me. It slams me up against my knowing. I am trying with all I have to stay so open as to fully know success and failure. This is a blunt process. I walk away from each art-making event knowing the depth of my comprehension, as well as the limits of my seeing, my knowing, my feeling. Yesterday's drawing was just one more step along this path, my journey in quest of light and enlightenment.
"How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 9), oil on canvas, 59.5x32 inches {"Life is sweet at the edge of a razor; And down in the front row of an old picture show the old man is asleep as the credits start to roll. And I want to know, the same thing everyone wants to know, how's it going to end?" -Tom Waits} One day comes, I believe I know how to do this. The next days comes, I feel awash with more questions that are without easy answers. Nothing is obviously right or wrong. I wander as if in a desert. I am contemplating. I am alone. There is doubt. I am working. I am brainstorming. I am seeking. I find; I question everything I find. Am I being successful? I do not know. Such is the process of making-art.
Two days ago I believed I had made a breakthrough drawing. I tried to repeat the process. No two days, not two drawings, no two acts are identical. Nothing can be repeated. Each activity stands by itself. The path is evident; the next step lays before me, but the place I am going is not known. I accept this. This process is lively and mysterious. I trust it is worthwhile; I believe it will reward me with more: more knowledge, more ideas, more questions, more results. I will possess a lot of more! "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2, state 2), oil on canvas, 55x31.5 inches {"Life is sweet at the edge of a razor; And down in the front row of an old picture show the old man is asleep as the credits start to roll. And I want to know, the same thing everyone wants to know, how's it going to end?" -Tom Waits} Questions obliterate any idea there is the possibility of an end. All is now. The future is mute. Destruction is intense; equilibrium is destroyed. Any experience that produced foreknowledge is lost in translation. Thus begins a new work of art. God, I do not know where this is going! I am a new born during each and every instance that is the beginning of a drawing or a painting. It is like awakening in a mudslide; you know it is going downhill, but foreknowledge of its destruction and its creation cannot be known till it comes to rest. This process is not for stable people; it can be viewed more safely from outside the mainstream of the mud.
I have attached a specific quote from Tom Waits' "How's It Gonna End" (2019 No.2); "Life is sweet at the edge of a razor; And down in the front row of an old picture show the old man is asleep as the credits start to roll. And I want to know, the same thing everyone wants to know, how's it going to end?" I revel in the glory of this process called art-making. I do not want my ability to experience it to end. The old picture show, the art that came before, does cause me to fall asleep: "Life is sweet at the edge of a razor." |
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April 2024
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