 Drawing 10·06·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·07·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·07·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am revisiting the drawings of Willem de Kooning. My understanding of their sophisticated command of the rectangle in which they sit is greater than ever. Knowing is one thing, acting with one's knowledge is extremely difficult; making art is a task of extreme mindfulness. This is my trouble. This is my struggle. The three drawings I show you today were created as an act of mindfulness. They are the best I could do when I did them. This internal act becoming external image is the essence of art-making. I am making a great effort to watch the structure of my drawings become real in real time, i.e., real in terms of personal emotion and personal knowing. Watching the knowing become a real image is a transitory experience that is being there as each note is created for better and for worse. It is the act of reacting, putting right the slightly askew mark made before the one now appearing. Compositions grows as do conversations. Command over feelings becoming words is poetry in the making. Perfection of communication is the goal poetry, of the visual arts, and of music. Perfection of communication is never reached.
 "Clever Liars" (2020 No.1, state 10), oil on canvas, 56½x47½ inches {"Clever liars give details, but the cleverest don't!" - anonymous}  Drawing 07·04·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday felt right and good; I knocked around my images, as one does when searching a wall for a solid stud. These images, the ones I show today, are solid. They hold their own, They have strength and dignity. They demand perusal. They give satisfaction. That said, the painting,"Clever Liars", is incomplete. It requires sheer work, mindful work, to reach finality. It is almost there; it asks me, "When is enough good enough?" In others words, its essence is true; I cannot get much more truth by adding nuance, so why continue to develop it? Here is where a discussion of perfection is relevant. Simple it is: Intuitively I feel the need to make each one of those bright, cone-like objects, truly lit, truly three-dimensional in feel — their surfaces must feel touchable, like an egg in a Chardin still-life (see below). The drawing is complex, indomitably readable, pure in its contrast of forms, forms left versus forms right. It this gaslighting? Does it make you question your sanity? My intension is to educate, not to admonish, "Ultimate sanity is comprehension, then acceptance; Contrast is part of our social order!"  Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, "Still Life with Herrings", oil on canvas, 32x39 cm, 1731  "The Doctrine of Liberty" (2019 No.1, state 10), 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}  Drawing 02·12·2019, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Almost, but it is not perfect yet! "The Doctrine of Liberty" looks like one more day of work till completion. It is an incredible painting, incredibly profound and rich. I accept its ending will not be perfect — its completion will bring questions that will drive me to seek answers in my next painting. The process has taken over. The result of an answer is a new question. This Q&A method is exactly the way yesterday's drawing was made.
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 21), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  "Chaos, Stillness & Prayer" (2018 No.9, state 3), 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} Perfection takes time. I must not let perfection distract me from advancement. Improvement comes by avoiding the lure of perfection. Improvement means knowing when I must move to a new endeavor. The lessons learned from my inability to achieve perfection will be used as instruction during my next effort. Betterment is slow and steady work. The endeavor to reach perfection must come with acceptance; perfection will never be achieved. Thus is human reality.
Burnt Norton is so darn close to completion. I have been tweaking and altering, each change coming with its sense of necessity to the fulfillment of the piece. Simultaneously I have been working on Chaos, Stillness & Prayer. I am going to limit myself to one more session on Burnt Norton.  "2017 No.9" (state 10), oil on canvas, 59.25x54.5 inches The painting 2017 No.9 will never look perfect to me. I went to the studio, took a look at the real thing. It is better than this reproduction. Is it as good as it gets? Perhaps. I may do a little more, but it is certainly time to move on. Yesterday's drawing is prelude to a new paintings (I think).  Drawing 06·09·2017, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "2016 No.8" (state 3), oil on canvas, 69x36 inches Perfect reproduction is not the only impossibility. My continued problems with even lighting is obvious in today's reproductions of yesterday's drawings. You can also see the impossibility of absolute perfection in the painting "2016 No.8". I feel I am behaving more more like Cezanne than Picasso. Who am I to know? Looking back from here, it seems to me Cezanne labored toward perfection, which he could never achieve, and Picasso labored as an experimenter, endlessly playing with the myriad of possibilities in emotive expression. I believe I am trying to follow both examples: Obviously frustrating! It is a frustrating battle, this dealing with purity and the messiness of emotions. Yesterday's three drawings play in this spectrum, beginning with the emotional No.1 and ending with purity in No.3.        Untitled Drawings-02·03·2015 Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches There is a story about a visit by the painter Nicolas de Staël to Georges Braque's studio. De Staël asked Braque, "How do we know we are not hacks?" Braque's answer was simple, "We don't!" I feel good about the art I am making. Does that make it good art? Like Braque, I don't know. My self-doubt is not going away soon.
Yesterday I made four drawings. I also stretched a canvas: a new painting is coming. I caution myself NOT to let the half finished paintings remain unfinished as I begin new ones. I need to go back to three painting and complete them. The problem is time. My strong desire to forge forward competes with my desire to be disciplined. Should I exhibit such discipline by completing incomplete paintings? Perfection is impossible, but there are degrees of completeness that gradate toward perfection. Looking at my three previous paintings I feel I am further away from perfection than I should be, or could be. I will struggle on, burdened as I am by my needs, and by my angst. |
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January 2021
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