 "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 5), 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 03·06·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I don't like yesterday's drawing. I do like this next step for the painting, "In the Lost Negative." Uneven success is yesterday's studio legacy. Whatever I do, as long as I do, I am on a learning journey, two steps forward, one back, two forward, et cetera. Yesterday I took solid and uneven steps. I learned a lot.
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 Drawing 03·05·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 03·05·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Chug, chug, chugging along. Not looking at flowers. Not trying to make a Rose Garden. Just making art.
 "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 4), 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 03·02·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am not going to dwell here for long. My last few days have been distracted by taxes and other amusements. Look at this work! Both from the the last day I actually had time in studio. It has direction. I just need to show up.
 Drawing 02·27·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 3), 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 images are me reacting to newfound questions. I allow myself to act, react, making real. I simultaneously accept classical composition as mandate, and my receptiveness to questions. I accept The Classical Mandate, i.e., in-your-face engagement is the simplest, and purest, conduit to viewer attention. In yesterday's blog I showed three image by Philip Guston. Those images follow The Classical Mandate. Picasso accepted The Classical Mandate. I have, at last, accept The Classical Mandate. I accept the necessity of immediate, in-your-face, attention grabbing imagery. It is the necessity to engage the viewer; it is necessary in every composition. After you look at my work, constructed with The Classical Mandate, look at one of Picasso's works (below👇). In his earliest work, and in his last, Picasso accepted The Classical Mandate. It took me a while, but I am here now. There is no denying The Classical Mandate is effective. Acceptance of tried and true is a comfort. It allows me to expand self-expression. It is the fluid means to self-engagement? The bonus is engagement with the viewer. After all, communication, between artist and viewer, is the ultimate goal.  Pablo Picasso, "Large Nude in Red Armchair", oil on canvas, 1929  "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.  Drawing 02·21·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 02·20·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 02·13·2021 (state 3), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches These three drawings were begun, re-stated; they are a week's worth of effort. In, out, and about was my journey; two steps forward, one back, two forward. I arrive here. These drawings are keys to my future. I am, more than anything else, an organizer. I need to make real. The reality I seek is available through the process of making art. There is no end-game. There is progress and steady clarification. I am who I am. I am organizing myself as I organize my images. Making clear is most important. These drawings announce my acceptance of a process never to be fulfilled. The journey is exciting, willfully reflective of self-query. I am in the act of becoming, moving with each work of art toward fulfillment.
 Drawing 02·20·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Recently, nothing feels complete. I accept this difficulty. Nothing is fully accomplished, nothing is "complete," "finished," or "done!" I do what I can. I move my works to "satisfactory." This drawing will be revisited. Also, I will revisit a drawing posted in yesterday's blog, Drawing 02·13·2021 (state 2). Already in state 2, at the end of yesterday's studio session I moved it to state 3. It is becoming more satisfactory. Today, when I arrive in the studio, I will look again.
 Drawing 02·19·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 02·18·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 02·13·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday began with a glance at the drawing from 2/18/2021. It is Good! This I followed with a revisited to the drawing from 2/13/2021, which I restated, as seen here. Finally, I made a drawing from scratch, the drawing dated 2·19·2021.
All went well. It was a day making sure I feel good about my current understanding. I came away feeling very good. I believe my recent steps have been in the right direction!  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 02·07·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Problem Solving is a loopy endeavor. By this I mean it is a spiral, looping back upon itself, over and over. The activity of problem solving is always looking for a true target. Yesterday's drawing did this. In fact, it contains the beginnings of a loop. It is a fine drawing. It exhibits my newly perceived insight. I require, and viewers require, a clear, engaging entry. After engagement, via an entry idea that is easy to perceive, me (the artist), and you (the viewer), are caught, as if in a web. Then, I can do whatever I wish. This enticement to enter, to engage, is most difficult to achieve. This is similar to the first sentence of a novel. If the first sentence does not engage with an idea, and a mystery to unravel, a reader will not continue to read. Some authors do this with each chapter. It is a skill. I am developing a similar skill in my art.
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March 2021
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