With every change that occurs, in the myriad of changes to the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014, this painting gets better, richer, more expressive. It is scary. I want to finish it off, but with each change I see more deeply. This leads to another change. There will come a time when a change will do little to enhance the painting, but yesterday's alterations to the man in the bottom right corner were definitely important. The compositional structure of this diptych is more full of motion and contrast. At this point I feel a quivering in my stomach when I approach art-making. It is so dauntingly amazing that I have actually learned to make expressive art of this magnitude. It is scary because I can see and feel this painting calling for its next alteration and I face the question of competency every time I work on it. I keep asking, "Do I have the ability to finish it off properly?" Well, that's the reason for all the work and practice I have done. This is a period in my life when my competency is in the midst of my accepting it. I must accept my powers in order to move on to making the substantial and authentic works of art I must make. The painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is a turning point.
Yesterday's drawing was important too. I know what I am doing, though it may not be obvious to you. My creative and physical energy ebbs and flows as response to the degree to which it was recently used. Last week was important in terms of the painting, Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. More importantly, it clarified my intent. I am much more clear on the art I must make. I stripped away a few more of my delusions. That effort drained my reserves of energy.
Thus far this week's art-making has been slow. However, after last week's efforts I feel I have the knowledge, and ability, to successfully complete Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. I also feel I know the next step I must take. This is very good. The problem I have with my current reality, i.e. the need to store up energy, is my distaste for waiting for my sharpness, intensity, and focus to come back. I prefer constancy. From experience I know the wait will not be long. That is reassuring. Yesterday's drawings are practice, studies for my next major work, a triptych of paintings. I am constantly amazed at the creative process. As the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 proceeds toward closure I feel this amazement very strongly. At this point in the process, each day's work moves Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 toward fulfillment of its own authenticity. Right now this is easy to see. Most days of art-making don't allow satisfaction. Most days are made mostly of questions, not answers. But right now Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 is clearly calling for resolution through true answers. And, most amazingly, these answers are happening.
Yesterday's drawing is a study for the reclining nude in Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. This drawing was very helpful, even though the woman in the drawing looks quite different than the woman in the painting. Before I painted, this drawing allowed me to practice the softness of approach called for by the woman in the painting. Yesterday's drawing is a reaction to the drawing posted in this blog on 5/22/2014 (Untitled Drawing-05·21·2014). These drawings represent the beginning of the process of conceiving my next painted work, which will be a large triptych with two side panels, one of a man, the other a woman. Thus yesterday's feminine reflection to Untitled Drawing-05·21·2014. The central panel will be something larger and will be inhabited by both the man and woman. I will stretch up three canvases: in inches the three canvases will be 60X50, 60X60, and 60X50.
I really don't like the drawing I made yesterday, but I feel the changes to the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014 are successful. The painting has moved in the right direction. As difficult as all these slow but steady alterations have been for me, they are educating me beyond intellectual measure. Yesterday's process, in altering the man's head (in the left panel), was more important than its outcome. Meaning, he isn't finished, but he is closer to completion because he has been felt more deeply. He has been felt as part of the entire painting. Today I will fix his chin, which appears here to be slumped and rounded, then move on to the girls and to finishing both canvases. The play of color and light in the left panel is now splendid. A note about process:Yesterday I approached solving the man's head as part of everything. I abandoned myself completely to feeling my way through his form, color, and position. I did this by sympathizing with his particular need for expression. This has often occurred in my drawing (that's why I enjoy drawing so very much), but this experience has not happened as easily in my painting. Yesterday I willed it to happen in my painting. I believe this has changed my life as a painter. I used my recent drawings to creep up to this ability to sympathize in everything I do. I watched myself draw. When I successfully found images that made expressive sense to me I took mental notes on process. I now know where I should be when painting or drawing. Because of my acceptance of this need to sympathize while in process, my painting, going forward, will be different. I will insist upon a process that makes expressive sense.
In person yesterday's drawing is subtly beautiful. The grays of the pencil delicately create form and light. This is missing in its reproduction. Even though this is not a drawing that challenges comprehension, it does sing with recognition. It is a study for the man on the left in the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. I very much wanted to get past this step of a study drawing and into the painting, but I also wanted to plant three trees on my property. It is springtime, and it was a beautiful day. I find trees as subtly beautiful as fine drawings. So I labored in the fields and gave up working on the painting. But today I will not. Yesterday's drawing is very useful as preparation for the next step on the painting Untitled Diptych-04·15·2014. Today I will make the effort to observe that painting as whole by moving away from it across the bounds of the entire studio. After comprehending its entirety I will try to make it right. If I succeed it will enter its final stage, that of clean-up, which has never been as engaging to me as the structural problem-solving I so dearly enjoy.
My struggles with multi-panel ideas continue. I enjoy the panel structure, with its automatic reference to time, and the manner in which it forces expressive interaction between disparate images, but in yesterday's drawing these fail. I believe the scale of the main form in the right panel (the woman) is grossly oversized and thus does not interact well with the man in left panel. You can see me play with appendages in an effort to make her work. As example, in my desire to make her interact effectively with the male figure I created internal contrast within her form by enlarging the size of the woman's feet relative to her torso. Obviously this was a futile effort. The X created by her legs fails as well. My aspiration to play her against her male counterpart simply had no effective solution. Enough of this self analysis! First thing I will do in the studio today is erase her. The man in the left panel is strong enough to deserve a substantial contrasting image in the right panel.
Not abnormal enough! My quest for more expressive and engaging art is taking over. I should say, "At last!" What have I been doing all these years? Answer: I have been gathering knowledge, intuition, and skill.
Today I will try again. I am certainly not there yet. I am tired of complaining. I am not there because I know I will never be there! I am here! That is why I must not complain about the years I have spent in search. Always I have been here! Knowing is not a sudden reality. It does bite one's mental ass. It pokes the brain with small bits of new knowledge. It does not slap the knowing into an instant wake-up call. This brings me back to today. I anticipate no more than more of the same. Not more of the same in images produced, but more of the same in process experienced. A note about the reproduction of the drawing reproduced today: The reproduction of the left head is not as crisp as the reproduction of the right head. This is not due to focus problems, but to lighting problems. Pencil marks produce a subtle sheen on a paper's surface. In this case the light which reflected off the pencil marks of the left head dulled the contrast of the pencil marks relative to one another and relative to the white surface of the paper. Consequently, in this reproduction, the left head does not sing as forcefully as the right head. This diminishes the impact of the overall image reproduced here when compared to the actual drawing. The remedy to this problem of inferior reproduction is better placement of lights and better use of a polarizing filter. Yesterday's drawing was a quick one, just over an hour to complete. It was a satisfying "check-in". My awareness of the emotional and expressive requirements of it were present while I acted, down to even the small details. It felt very good.
All I can tell you is... this is practice and it is making me better, more capable of doing what I have to do.
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May 2024
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