 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 5), 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 01·30·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·30·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches There are many ways to approach the emotional energy in a rectangular work of art. I am trying one after the other, looking for robust reflection of my feelings. It is a game. I am challenging my ability to make real the stuff I feel and know. This is research. Try one thing, then another. Take a couple steps forward, then a failure. React to failure. Take another step, hopefully forward. With time and energy, I am getting closer. Success is translating my knowing, my feeling, into the physical image I am making. Look at yesterday's work. Each one is a step in the right direction. Are they fully successful? That feeling of being near, but incomplete, is the reason I return. The success I am experiencing is this: I feel closer to making real that which I know and feel.
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 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 1), 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 01·08·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 01·08·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches As old as I am, as much I have investigated life and living, I continue to be surprised by my vigor and the consistency of my vying for truth. Yesterday was an awesome day, filled with vigor, a day I competed eagerly with myself to achieve a clearer personal vision, one fully immediate and self-reflective. Right now, I am off to do more! You judge the success, and the failure. I am in the midst of investigation; I do not want to be judgmental.
 Drawing 12·19·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 12·19·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Have these two varieties sprung from the same artist?
 Drawing 12·11·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing. This one is not about yesterday. Of course, it looks back and it looks forward, but it is really about now. Always, I wonder about contrast is scale, contrast in shape and form, contrast in value. This one researches all of that, and more. This play on contrast is an emotional play. It engages the viewer in discord and sedition. It asks for rebellion. It requests one to accept something completely different. It is a rabble on the left impinging on the simple and pure on the right. Who wins this fomentation of discontent? If it works well, you and I see and understand more deeply than before our encounter with this drawing.
 Drawing 12·10·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 12·05·2020 No.2 (state 3), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Yesterday's work was about the work from the day before yesterday. And so it goes. The continuum continues.
 Drawing 11·23·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 11·22·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I have begun a practice of returning to drawings which I had believed finished. This looking back is helping me. I am making good drawings better. I am learning about the error of my ways. Some of my drawings suffer endings because I have exhausted myself; thus their possibilities are limited by exhaustion. Others are made deceptively complex, thus diluting their impact. I go back a second day to eliminate and strengthen, moving these drawings to a basic, more forceful simplicity.
It has been my habit to make drawing a daily exercise. I believed drawing was a daily exercise, unlike painting. I believed drawings were to be completed in one sitting, while paintings were exercised over multiple days. The complexity of my understanding is leading to failure to complete in my one-day/drawing habit. Energy of one day is becoming an issue too. Proper completion is impossible when complexity meets the limits of energy. The other issue is exhaustion removes the edgy, robust energy required in order to see strength in simplicity. The first drawing I show today took three days to make (I did not photograph state 1; I must have known state 1 failed a finality test). The second drawing is simple investigation; it feels basic because it is simple research into one avenue of possibilities. I do not like the second drawing. It is here, which may be the last time it will be seen in public.  Drawing 10·17·2020 (state 2), pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·18·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·18·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·18·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·18·2020 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·18·2020 No.5, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Today I ask you to begin your viewing at the top of this page. I begin with a revisit [as promised in my last post]. That drawing is a rethink; a small tweak to its previous state. It is much better because of a small alteration. This tweak began a flow of questions; many answers follow... 1,2,3,4,5. Rapid is my current thinking. Rapid, not rabid or forced, but measured by investigation. I am in the midst of impassioned research. 1,2,3,4,5 are the spoils from one day. The greatness is the indecisiveness; I have accepted many possibilities. Everything is up for question and query. The lack of one solution calls out the plethora of possibles. Nothing is sacred. Yes, but... I am leading a life self-examined.
 Drawing 10·16·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.3, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 10·16·2020 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Deciphering truth is living with circumstances. These drawings are boldly without guile, thus bold questions that are answered as possibilities; there is success and there is failure. These are things unresolved. These drawings are clues to a better tomorrow. Here, in front of you, are emotional and intellectual questions. All of them are accepted as research. That is, here are serious steps toward a better and more lucid reflection upon myself and my self-expression. Come what may, these are exercises in behaving well.
 "Stubborn & Egotistical" (2020 No.4, state 1), oil on canvas, 64½x55 inches {"If we've learned anything from the best-selling 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' children's book series, it's that those who see themselves surrounded by idiots are usually idiots themselves." -Jakob Augstein, "Stubborn and Egotistical" (Spiegel Online, 3/25/2013)} This painting, "Stubborn & Egotistical", is a fascinating research project. It is the simplicity of two major forms. This cannot hold. These objects will become more interesting as they take their journey into determinant, painterly objects; they will be cajoled till they exude spirit and consequence.
 Drawing 09·04·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 09·04·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Drawing No.1: too complicated? Drawing No.2: too simple? Yes, no, maybe? Each is a step along the way, doubling as art, science, research, judgements, and questions; each remain a step, not a destination.
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At MEHRBACH.com you may view many of my paintings and drawings, past and present, and see details about my life and work. Archives
February 2021
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