 Drawing 12·06·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Three million strokes and counting.... Yesterday's drawing celebrates the marking of a white piece of paper with graphite from a pencil. Later yesterday, as I rested reading in my living room, my arm let me know it had been taxed. I had been enjoying finding forms, finding surface, finding space, finding light, and finding composition! This simultaneity-filled activity is a celebration of mindfulness. The more I do it the longer I can sustain it! This is "practice", as defined by veteran meditators. The Buddha would be proud of me! I have not obtained Buddhahood, but I am moving in that direction. Shravasti Dhammika, a Theravada monk, writes:  Drawing 06·26·2018, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I spent last weekend in New York City. I saw a lot of art. Some of it excellent, some has mysteriously gotten great attention from buyers & collectors (despite being devoid of profundity). My biggest interaction with art relevant to me, was the massive exhibition of works by Alberto Giacometti at the Guggenheim Museum. Giacometti and I share love of form and love of touch; we both scratch every part of the surface of everything we make. Giacometti and I love to feel our way through a work, whether it be a drawing, a painting, or a sculpture. Because I wish to get to the studio as soon as possible, I leave you with a couple works by Giacometti and one by me. Mine was made yesterday. Giacometti died in 1966.
 "Chocorua" (2018 No.5, state 2), oil on canvas, 34x51 inches {"A substitute for all the gods, This self, not that gold self aloft, Alone, one's shadow magnified, Lord of the body, looking down, As now and called most high, The shadow of Chocorua" - Wallace Stevens, "The Man with the Blue Guitar", verse XXI}  Drawing 06·13·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches The drama of yesterday's drawing insists upon the reproduction seen here, where the white ground appears gray. I tried to reproduce this authentically, as seen in actual. There is success here, as this reproduction allows the viewer to see the play in lower versus the upper half. In today's reproduction the immense amount of surface work in the lower half cavorts nicely with the artifice of 3D-space in the upper half.
Chocorua is going, and coming. It is calling me to be entertained with surface romp, to perform it like a music jam.  Drawing 01·23·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am sure you can see. My drawings have changed. There is surface inspection like never before. I am feeling my way through, around, and on the surfaces of the forms, the ground, and the background. I am in an effort to integrate it all. I want to be cognizant of the touch, the feel of all I create on the paper, while simultaneously watching the entire composition form. All is becoming one of many things. This acknowledgement is important. It is self-acknowledgement. I want to be mindful of where I am while being mindful of the overall. I am working toward this goal. It feels authentic. It is becoming my faithful way to produce an image.
 "2017 No.14" (state 4), oil on canvas, 47x44 inches  Drawing 12·14·2017, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches The world of my pictures wants to impinge upon the world of my living. Immediacy calls for reverberation. It brings attention. There is intimacy in my request. Yesterday's drawing is a surreal blend of ground and sky. They don't mix well. This is different from the reverb seen in state 4 of the painting 2017 No.14. I know, despite our inability to see it, there is commonality of approach. The drawing and the painting ask for attention using surface junction versus surface disjunction. Vocal disturbance enhances the nuance of a signal's meaning; this is called reverb. I am using its visual equivalent. Of course my analogy is impure. The idea is not. I hope you are looking because you are disturbed by my visual means and intrigued by my visual content.
 "2016 No.6" (state 6), oil on canvas, 77x60 inches These reproductions were taken by a Nikon COOLPIX L810 16.1MP Digital Camera, just a simple "point & shoot" camera, not a DSLR. I am surprised. The quality of these reproductions is very good. The death of my old Nikon D80 DSLR (vintage 2006) is a good thing. I will be purchasing a new Nikon DSLR, but the quality of the reproductions you see here is adequate. Adequate enough for me to post a second reproduction of the current state of the painting "2016 No.6". Usually I use a polarization filter to reduce glare from lighting, but this camera does not allow a filter. Still, very good with minimal glare. This proves you learn from a mishap. This proves technology moves rapidly forward, and I need to stay up with it. Today you can see me ascending a learning curve in more ways than simple reproduction. Although I do think the current state of "2016 No.6" is better than the last, viewing it makes me miss my fondness for deep space. Thus the drawings I made two days ago, posted here today. I believe I have a major problem to work through (which is a constant). Today's major problem is me, integrating light, color, energy of surface and touch, with my fondness for deep space: Not easy for me. At one point in Willem de Kooning's career, and also, earlier in my career, our paintings went Black & White, sans color. This may have to happen again. At the end of today's post are reproductions of Black & White oil paintings, de Kooning's from 1948 and mine from 1984. Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) was not well known in 1948 (his colorful "Woman" paintings began later that year. Willem de Kooning's "Woman" paintings marked the beginning of his artistic maturity).    Willem de Kooning, "Painting", oil on canvas, 1948  Carl Mehrbach, "3D Abstract", oil on canvas, 1984  Drawing-01·27·2016, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches I know, my art looks nothing like Egon Schiele's. I have no ambition to make art that looks like Egon Schiele's. However, every once in a while, there are elements within my drawings that remind me of Schiele's work. It is in the touch and feel of the surface. Schiele can leave the paper, outside of his form, blank, without touching it. His forms (as in the drawing shown below) are touched everywhere. He relentlessly, caressingly, feels the form. This gives delight to viewer. Such surface enhancement makes a viewers feel as if he were in the room when the drawing was made. The viewer feels like he sees the same thing Schiele saw. My work is not so real. My work does not reflect an actual person in a room. This is my separation from Schiele.  Egon Schiele, "Nude on Stomach", 1917  Drawing-01·09·2016, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches In yesterday's post I showed a reproduction of a painting by Carroll Dunham. That painting of Dunham's is similar to many of his recent paintings. Dunham's color scheme is repetitive. Dunham's imagery is repetitive, including the use of the backside of a woman with large buttocks (take a look at Dunham's website for more of the same: Carroll Dunham's website). Yesterday a woman with large buttocks showed up in my drawing. This drawing is influenced by Carroll Dunham, but it is obviously quite different than Dunham's work. Most interesting to me is my vastly dissimilar approach to drawing. In everything I do, it is me I am interested. It appears, however, that I am casually interest in Dunham. Comparing Dunham's approach to mine is instructive. I am all about being playful with forms, creating interesting compositions based upon forms in space, and scratching the surfaces of those forms with pencil or paint. Contrasting Dunham's works to mine makes my own approach so apparent to me. In contrast to Dunham, my work is non-repetitive in its use of imagery, form, space, color, and composition. Carroll Dunham does appear to make many more paintings than I. So sticking to one idea that strikes one's fancy may help produce a large volume of work, but is it good work? I will not answer that, but I will say that Dunham appears to have "made it", by which I mean his paintings are bought and possessed by collectors, one after another. That has not happened to me. My work is not about producing a large volume of work. Is this a problem? This question I will not attempt to answer.
 Drawing-11·28·2015, pencil on paper, 16X20 inches I am recovering from the intensity and indulgence of Thanksgiving Dinner, family and friends. Nice! Yesterday I spent some time in the studio, not a lot, but enough to try using a piece of old printmaking paper to support my drawing. It is rougher in texture than my usual paper, also a bit yellow (today's reproduction accurately depicts the paper's subtle yellow surface). The pencil went on differently too, scrapping across the paper's robust texture. It also erased differently, leaving more traces of strokes gone wrong. I returned to an old image. This became an activity filled with déjà vu. (At moments like this I always think of Yogi Berra, who said, "It's déjà vu all over again.") Yes, yesterday was a relaxing day, a gentle return from a big meal and social activity.
  Drawings-03·12·2015 Nos. 1 & 2, pencil on paper, 11X14 inches Today's drawings were about surface subtlety. I use the past tense because I am looking back several hours at the process that stimulated today's drawings. Today I experimented. I tested. Tests come with questions. One answer: I know that I do not wish to make three-dimensional surfaces the primary impetus of my art. Composition was important in today's drawings. That felt good. Surfaces are important because they add nuance to the composition, but composition is the mother of expression.
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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 2020
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