Category: Steps

Day by Day

3/19/2023

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"Anew" (2023 No.4, state 05), oil on canvas, 47¼x60½ inches

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Verisimilitude Foraging

11/2/2022

"Ghost Town" (2022 No.9, state 08), oil on canvas, 55¼x58⅞ inches

Drawing 10·30·2022, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

Verisimilitude is as much about me as it is about you. My job is to make appearances work for both of us. Your job is to see and feel. My job is to make Artwork for both of us. My products must mimic my vision, make it clear, precise, easy to read. I am talking about personal vision being translated into universal visual language. The two works I show today are steps in the right direction.

One More Stepping Stone

9/30/2022

Drawing 09·29·2022, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches

Over the last week I have made numerous drawings. These are risky drawings, all in search of trueness to myself, the enlightened child born from years of labor, years of thoughtfulness. These drawings are stepping stones on my path, a path not mine to choose. I must follow my path if I am to reach personal satisfaction. My path is fraught with risk. In the past, my intellect, and my emotional needs, have tricked me. I have been tricked because I desire to fit the Artistic molds invented by others, i.e., Art which has found approval from scholars, historians, and critics.

Arrival at the Middle

9/7/2022

Drawing 09·06·2022, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches

I call now the middle of my journey. This lesson in life, in Art, is I had to arrive at the middle before I could take a step toward full, self-realization. This drawing is important; it focuses on the most natural to me, i.e., inventing interesting, biomorphic forms. These biomorphic forms are beyond my natural self, they are reality, they have profound meaning.

Here We Are

7/11/2022

"Crevice" (2022 No.7, state 9), oil on canvas, 41⅜x57½ inches

I am continually surprised. Paintings do make sense when their sustenance is nurtured through repeated visits. Active alterations do move in the right direction. Proper journeys are not errorless, they contain misdirections, but sticking to it sorts out the path. I am beginning to believe "Crevice" makes sense. This painting does obtain authentic self-expression.

NEXT STEP: "Crevice" (state 8)

7/7/2022

"Crevice" (2022 No.7, state 8), oil on canvas, 41⅜x57½ inches

Being Real Seems Strange

7/5/2022

"Arena" (2022 No.6, state 9), oil on canvas, 41¼x58½ inches

The price of accepting normality is abnormal appearance. My Art looks strange. This is who I am. Like a snake, the process of growth has caused me to shed skin. The painting, "Arena", has lost much of it previous surface; its skin has been replaced during another step toward my reality.

Wanting to be Satiated

5/21/2022

"Arena" (2022 No.6, state 3), oil on canvas, 41¼x58½ inches

Taking risks does not mean more than step taking. I want to be satiated; that will never happen. Art-Making is looking. With every step I take I get closer to making sense to myself.

The subject of the painting "Arena" is usual. It begs for a next step. I am happy with the next step being necessary. The next step will be here and/or the painting that follows this one.

Better Version, Better Reproduction too!

4/27/2022

"Uphill the Hero" (2022 No.4, state 7), oil on canvas, 60x56⅝ inches

"The Beginnings of Caution" (2022 No.4, state 2-repro 2), oil on canvas, 47¼x47 inches

"Uphill the Hero" took a good step. "The Beginnings of Caution" got a second try to reproduce it well (which ain't perfect either).

Better, Never, and More

3/7/2022

"Silence, Exile, and Cunning" (2022 No.1, state 10), oil on canvas, 48x57 inches, {"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning." - James Joyce (1882-1941), "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" (1916)}

"Gonna Speak to the Crowd" (2021 No.5, state 25), oil on canvas, 64x57⅜ inches, {"I'm gonna spare the defeated — I'm gonna speak to the crowd. I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the crowd. I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered. I'm gonna tame the proud." - Bob Dylan, "Lonesome Day Blues" (2001)}

The new state (#10) of "Silence, Exile, and Cunning" is better than the last. This new reproduction of "Gonna Speak to the Crowd" is better than the last. I'm never done. There is more to come.

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