Yesterday's drawing (below) was completed before I made the changes to the painting (above). I wrote about this in yesterday's blog post. My drawing and my painting are now in a dialogue. It is a more profound dialogue than the drawings being simple studies for the painting. I am questioning the manner in which the fabric of my technique effects the expressive quality of all my work.
I have newfound controls, and I am able to make choices, that just a year ago I would never have thought of. This drawing shows a few of those, including the contrast of the man's head on the left with the darkened body of the woman. There is more, but today is not my day to contemplate art; it is, after all, a Monday, the day of the week I deal with the financial part of my life and art-making. Pooh!
NOTE ABOUT REPRODUCTION: I was disappointed with the reproduction shown above, so I used Photoshop again, in an effort to get closer to the dynamic range and subtlety of the original image. I don't know if the second try is better. I will let you decide. Once again I must point out that digital reproduction fails miserably. There is no way it adequately reflects the complex and subtle delicacy of hand produced visual art. I'm watching and wondering. This is a lonely business. This feels particularly true when I delve into the realm of knowledge which springs from my abstract internals, rather than from the stuff that sits on my dinner table. Some objects in Painting-07·28·2013 are unknown objects. They animate the space. This is visually exciting. It is not the concrete matter of the real world which excites me visually, it is the play of abstract objects in an artificial and artful space. This includes the surface of the objects, and the space which these objects inhabit. Like Vincent van Gogh, I want to touch everything, and leave my mark on everything. You can see me search the surfaces in yesterday's drawing and in yesterday's painting. Since I referenced van Gogh I will show you one of his paintings after mine.
I believe Painting-05·10·2013 has come to conclusion. I will sit with it a few more days before I dare call it "final." Painting-05·10·2013 is more than just another painting to me. It is an announcement: "No going back!" While making this painting I consistently and clearly felt self-aware expression. The tenacious and persistent behavior I experienced throughout the process of this painting is new to me. Self-expression is not new, but relentlessness in the process, over several weeks of work, on one object, is new.
A note about the reproduction of yesterday's drawings: These were trouble. These drawings did not reproduce easily. I am still unsatisfied. Perhaps it is the contrast of the white of the paper to the pencil marks that create the problem. In any case, these drawings are far more subtle and interesting in person. This is, of course, true of all art work, but in this case it is overwhelmingly true. As usual, my posts here give you an indication of my work, but the true impact of reality is missing. You are experiencing reproduction, and nothing more. You cannot expect more from a blog on the world wide web! I have been trying to bring order to my life and to my art. Aren't we all? My days are full; often so full that I feel rushed and uncomfortable. Also, like a manic depressant (except my lack of control has to do with energy more than emotions), I have been going through cycles of extreme energy and extreme exhaustion. So here's the solution: I will be in the studio, creating art (and all the work surrounding that activity), four hours per day. I am hoping to gain a consistency in my energy level, and in the level of my art. I feel I am ready for this. I have read that the authors W. Somerset Maugham and Ruth Rendell planned their days around 4 hours of writing. Both were extremely prolific and extreme expressive. Watch me and see...
I have been making efforts to control the White Balance of my photographic reproductions. It is working. A few days ago I began using better lighting techniques by changing to the more even lighting of CFLs, and yesterday I spent an hour experimenting with different ways to control White Balance. The results are good: the reproductions today are closer to reality than seen here before. And now from me, and the "Talking Heads". First the "Talking Heads":
Puzzlin' Evidence You got the CBS And the ABC You got Time and Newsweek Well, they're the same to me Now don't you wanna get right with me? Puzzling evidence I hope you get ev'rything you need, puzzling evidence I know I am not proceeding quickly in terms of total number of output items. The drawing shown today is puzzling. I do think it is a necessary drawing. It bounces me off something that does not work well for me. My reaction to this drawing will bring me back to a place which works better. I require a search which is more productive, more informative, than this drawing. I need to be more true to my personal self-expression. Therefore I will go to painting, which I will do today. Painting, right now, is more important than drawing. Recently my drawings have not been strongly informative. Right now I believe painting is a better activity. Painting has a better chance of helping me properly place another piece into the puzzle I am trying to make whole. My paintings are larger, and have color, and thus they allow more questions to be asked. Painting allows more open, more complex play, than drawing. No, this will not be the end of drawing for me. But these drawings do not have completed thoughts as my last painting has a completed thought. It may be a time I need to paint to find completion. These drawings feel extremely limited.
I use the word "plumbing" because my plumbing the depths of myself (though my work) got waylaid by my household plumbing. A bathtub faucet leak took my afternoon away, but not before an important drawing was made. New and better technique is happening in this drawing. I am not going to elaborate because yesterday's lack of time in the studio makes me want to get there as soon as possible today.
I lied. Many in the world do not act the way I am so desperately training myself to act. It is about genuine truth, and finding a way to constantly act within a groove which defines just that: authenticity! Yesterday's drawing felt this way. It is not about the image, but about using touch and feel in pursuit of the authentic. My job is finding reality by marking and erasing and marking again, a circular and iterative process continued until the product rings true. This reads like a cliché, but it defines my job. Writing down the idea of how it works is easy. The doing it, with consistency, is hard.
Here is the pep talk portion of today's post: It is time to carry the ideas set forth in paragraph one into my painting. Yesterday I prepared a 60 X 52 inch canvas. It sits, gleamingly white, on my painting wall. Today I will begin to make marks on this canvas, with no intention other then to act correctly. I am not going to say "Revolution 10" is the painting I always wanted to make. It is the painting I had to make. I had to make "Revolution 10" in order to move on. Completing "Revolution 10" has given me confidence in my skills. I can now make the paintings I want to make. Today is the day I will deliver two works, "Revolution 10" and one drawing, to be juried in, or out, of the AVA Gallery Summer Exhibition.
The two drawings I post today were actually completed over the last three days (the first from 06/16/2012, and the second begun on 06/16 and finished yesterday). You can see where my work is going. In these drawings there is an overall quality of seeking and finding, which is not omni-present in "Revolution 10". This ubiquitous, and pervasive, sense of drawing, as questioning and answering, is the essential driving force of my art. My making art feels right when I am searching for truth by the activity of seeking marks on the paper or canvas which sing true. It is not just making marks, it is adding and subtracting. It is scratching around, looking for authenticity in the surface, and in the images. When I speak "surface" I mean it in two ways, the surface of the rendered forms, and the surface of the canvas or paper. |
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April 2024
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