Wild 3D (1990), and Tele-Vision (2015), both oil on canvas The more things change the more they remain the same. Twenty-five years separate the creation of the paintings reproduced above, yet they have remarkable similarities. I am not going to make art for the next 12 days. Instead, I am going to spend my time mulling over the current state of my work, its efficacy, its derivative history (both internal and external), and my ongoing mission to make it relevant to myself and to you, my viewers.
I am hesitant to begin a new painting. I will continue to hesitate until I understand the ground upon which I stand. Yesterday's drawing brought me a little closer to comprehension. And I do not mean, comprehension, in a verbal sense. Rather, as I made yesterday's drawing I felt that I moved with mindfulness, not dissimilar to making a successful move in sport. You just know when good choices are being made. I have to thank Jackson Pollack, and also the discussion of Pollack's "No.5, 1948", as seen, and heard, in the movie Ex Machina. In yesterday's drawing you can see me make an effort to approach drawing as an "automatic" activity, which was referred to in Ex Machina. In a recent blog I mentioned the Jackson Pollack painting used in Ex Machina. For me, most of Jackson Pollack's paintings lack emotional depth and character, but not the one seen in Ex Machina. If anything, seeing it in this film, and exploring it a bit more on my own, I now recognize the reason Jackson Pollack's art is highly regarded. He did not make a lot of good work, but neither did Johannes Vermeer. Both these artist made a handful of exceptional works. Thus a reason to regard their body of work as important, and interesting, even those that fail. Below, I have included a reproducation of Jackson Pollack's painting "No. 5, 1948", and an explanation of its use in the film Ex Machina. The following information about the Jackson Pollack painting seen in the movie "Ex Machina" is from Steven McQuinn at http://www.quora.com: Drawings from 8/11/2015, all are pencil on paper, 16X20 inches Somehow, and someway, I am in the middle of the rejection of figuration. I am not sure this is forever, but it is for now. Yesterday's drawings are one more step on my quest to be real.
Today, appearing here is something unusual. I show yesterday's third drawing twice! The smaller format (above) can be enlarged by simply clicking on the image. The larger format (below) can also be clicked upon to isolate it on your computer screen. I show both ways because I want you to compare the overall compositional impact versus the play of individual forms (similar to grabbing the viewer from two viewing distances, far and near). I hope you enjoy! Drawings from 8/7/2015, all pencil on paper, 16X20 inches Being normal is not easy. The quest to settle into my personal normalcy is upon me, full force. The best I can do is whittle away at the roughness and confusion that clouds my judgement. The muck that comes from eduction, and the many wrong paths I have taken, disturbingly causes me to misbehave. I am working it out. I am optimistic. Time is on my side.
I keep hoping that I will enter the studio and it will spill out of me easy and true. It just does not happen. I do not feel comfortable with yesterday's drawing, but it came from me. As usual, I am struggling to find an authentic way to make form, to compose, to find a narrative, to make art that reflects and inspires me. No way this is simple (no matter how much I wish it so). Is this drawing as muddled and unimportant as I see it at this moment? WTF is that cross doing on that guy's head?
On a more encouraging note: Yesterday I did begin to stretch a new canvas. I believe it will take the larger format of painting, the more sustained manner of self-discovery that is painting, to figure this out. It feels good to run into this without knowing where it's going. More precisely, I am following the lead of positive intuitive feedback. It is a feedback loop, not unlike one experienced with a microphone and an electrical audio amplifier. It is getting louder and louder, squealing in pleasure and pain. I am "getting real" with myself. If I have learned anything from my recent activity, it is that I enjoy moving my line across invented forms. If this is methodology, it is one of discovery of form through seek and find by line.
The painting, Tele-Vision, actually looks a little better here than during my efforts to Photoshop it toward accurate reproduction. This new state of Tele-Vision is much more complex than its previous state, and thus more impossible to reproduce well. It's those reds and oranges that cause havoc. Duplicating the nuances of these colors on a computer screen, lit (as they are) from behind, is impossible. However, I believe you get the idea behind these colors, and the overall feeling of a painting that is being made, more than ever before, as my drawings are made. I am allowing my intuitive ideas to take control, sorting them out through action and reaction. Saying this, I almost do not want you to look at yesterday's staid and rigid drawing. It is a funny one. The path I follow, from work to work, is more about questions than answers. The answers I get are not always admirable or appropriate. Yesterday's drawing misses because I lost interest in the answer to the question. I wanted to know if it would interest me to make a simple figure, fully rounded, mimicking a world of three-dimensional forms. Yesterday's drawing definitely is not an appropriate answer. This question was instigated by the second drawing of 8/1/2015.
I am slowing down and watching more carefully. Call it a move toward mediative reactionism. Gushy paint is being replaced by thinner paint which allows more sensual feel and touch. This means I am still learning the provocation from which my personal craft arises. My pencil line has had this quality of sensual touch for quite a while.
I am a man raised upon my intellect, and upon my physical ability to go fast and endure. Yet I am here. I am discovering, through fits and starts and stops and failures and successes, authenticity is revealed not simply by intellect, nor by the ability to call up physical prowess. I will reveal that which causes me wonderment and joy through mindfulness. This I know, because through profound failures, and because of profound successes, this truth has identified itself to me. Also, I hear this truth so often. This information is surfacing in many places. Today I was listening to a podcast with the man who has taught NBA basketball players to access mindfulness. That which he spoke is that which I am discovering. To hear this Podcast go to George Mumford, meditation master to the NBA’s stars – Kobe, Shaquille, Jordan – brings us his zen.
You would think this is the way it ought-to-be, all-of-the-time, but it ain't! I am having to grow myself into accepting that there are no pre-conceptions. I just need to show up. Showing up means something happens. No plans. No rigid ideas. It is the simplicity of now. If this is simple, why does it feel nerve-wracking? Well, I am admitting I do not know what I am doing. Not knowing is emotionally difficult. It is thinking on my feet, rather than knowing the course of the river. What is around the bend? I do not know. I do not care. I just show up. I just do. It is a surprise. It is self-teaching at a level far deeper than a book of words. There are no words. From whence it comes has not been tabulated. Drawings from 06/14/2015, all are pencil on paper, 16X20 inches
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May 2024
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