For better, or for worse, "Revolution 10" has resolved itself. That's the way I feel about every painting that gets to this point of no return. Changes are no longer warranted. Perfection has not been achieved. Yet the painting says all it needs the say. I am not happy with its rigidity. I do not paint the way I draw. I paint as if I am learning to paint. I draw as if I am expressing myself. Acceptance: "Revolution 10" says what it needs to say with the best quality I can achieve right here right now. The next painting will be different, and it will spring from all I know. I know more because I made "Revolution 10". Sooner or later I will paint the way I draw.
I always wish it were easier, like having fun on a slip-slide. Then again, it would not have the resonance and richness of deep satisfaction if it were easier. It is the struggling in constant revolution, and seeing the small gains in authentic expression, that makes this art-making worthwhile and rewarding. Yesterday produced a small move toward a better resolution in the painting "Revolution 10", and an excellent drawing. The skill in the drawing is great, but the visual meaning of the drawing does not strike me as excellent as the skill. I am not sure. Some of you have asked, "Why Revolution 10?" The reason for the use of 10 is answered by reference to an explanation of The Beatles' "Revolution 9" (read it below the drawing posted today). "Revolution 9" is a recorded composition that appeared on The Beatles' 1968 self-titled LP release (popularly known as "The White Album"). The sound collage, credited to Lennon–McCartney, was created primarily by John Lennon with assistance from George Harrison and Yoko Ono. Lennon said he was trying to paint a picture of a revolution using sound. The composition was influenced by the avant-garde style of Ono as well as the musique concrète works of composers such as Edgard Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
The recording began as an extended ending to the album version of "Revolution". Lennon then combined the unused coda with numerous overdubbed vocals, speech, sound effects, and short tape loops of speech and musical performances, some of which were reversed. These were further manipulated with echo, distortion, stereo panning, and fading. The loop of "number nine" featured in the recording fueled rumors about Paul McCartney's death after it was reported that it sounded like "turn me on, dead man" when played backwards. McCartney argued against including the track on The Beatles. At over eight minutes, it is the longest track that the Beatles officially released. With the painting I now call "Revolution 10", I believe the revolution in my art has turned from casual, to real. (Yes, this painting was called "Intimidation.") At last I am entering the studio with confidence. I technically am able to manipulate with an ability to solve the image to satisfactorily reflect my expressive intention. This week I will work on "Revolution 10", moving it toward the work which will, next week, be submitted to the AVA Gallery Juried Summer Exhibition. The drawings too are taking on consistent substantiality. Three drawings are shown today, two from yesterday, and one from two days ago (06/09/2012). As with "Revolution 10", they are consistent, expressive solutions, albeit imperfect. The imperfection of my work will drive me forever toward better resolutions. Knowledge is buried within, and making art is the act of unearthing it, bit by bit, day by day—unendingly.
Yes, it is getting better and better, but the drama of the activity is being replaced by the simple pleasures of the activity. Subtlety is replacing large gains in knowledge.
One technical note in regard to reproduction: I am having an increasingly difficult time adequately reproducing my work, especially the painting. As the subtlety of my work increases, my dislike of the lack of subtlety of the reproductions increases. I am making great efforts to make the reproductions as true to the real things as possible, but more and more find their lack of reflection of the nuances of reality annoying. "You can't get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. The surface is all you've got. You can only get beyond the surface by working with the surfce. All you can do is to manipulate the surface—gesture, costume, expression—radically and correctly. And I think Schiele understood this in a unique, profound, and original way. Rather than attempting to abandon the tradition of the performing portrait (which is probably impossible anyway), it seems to me Schiele pushed it to extremes. He shattered the form by turning the volume up to a scream. And so what we see in Schiele is a kind of recurring push and pull: first toward pure 'performance,' gesture and stylized behavior pursued for its own sake; then these extreme stylizations are preserved in form, but disoriented, taken out of their familiar place, and used to change the nature of what a portrait is."
-Richard Avedon I was disappointed with myself yesterday. Yesterday's one drawing is mediocre. I look forward to a good day in the studio today. I did have an important insight, which is described well in the quote from Richard Avedon. Often I have wondered about my affinity for the work of the artist Egon Schiele. The Avedon quote clearly expresses the reason Schiele's approach has similarity to mine. Below my drawing I show a drawing by Egon Schiele, a photograph by Richard Avedon, and a Self-Portrait by the painter Francis Bacon. Avedon appears in his photograph with Francis Bacon. Bacon is another artist whose works strongly informs my work. As with Schiele and Avedon, Francis Bacon's work is all about surface. Richard Avedon must have enjoyed making this photo with Francis Bacon because they share a way of perception. The activity of drawing is becoming extremely similar to the activity of painting. This is a good thing. It is the creation of pentimento which identifies the acts as similar. In yesterday's first drawing (below) you can clearly see the telltale marks on the paper. The repeated pencil searches are impossible to completely remove, despite intense efforts to erase unacceptable attempts. Yesterday's drawing #2 is excellent. It displays my acquisition of a great deal of knowledge. The work is becoming more substantial as I accept my innate artistic and personal directions. It feels right and good. So, it is with mixed emotions I leave the studio for several days. Yesterday I told you about my attending my niece's wedding, which I am anticipating with great joy. However, the removal of the day by day routine of the studio, especially when my efforts are going so well, perturbs me. Realistically this perturbation is unimportant when compared to the pleasure and satisfaction of my seeing my niece marry. I will be in the studio today, and then will miss just five days of work, returning to the studio on Tuesday May 22.
Yesterday's drawings feel very right to me. They did not come any easier, but they came truer. I felt myself through them, like a blind man wending himself through a room full of furniture and objects. The furniture and objects are my accumulated knowledge, built upon the events of my living: good, bad, and ugly. My actions were simple: I dropped into feeling deeply. I did not question the environment of my drawing. I scraped and honed, seeking authenticity with each action, like stabbing in the darkness to see what lurks, then assembling the reality of the resulting perception on the paper. Each mark, and erasure, was an event seeking accuracy. All of this spoke to me like butter on bread; it tasted as if the invention of the parts were primordial and meant to be joined by my actions. I do not feel as intimate with my painting as I do with my drawings. Where am with painting? I imagine I am in a place similar to Manet and Picasso when they initially tested new ground by making original and personal art. Art Historians call these paintings "Early Manet" and Early Picasso." Below I show an "Early Manet" and an "Early Picasso." Each of these artists were well past their "student days," but not yet making fully mature paintings, when they made the paintings I show you today. The simplicity, and directness, of these images illustrate the search for personal authenticity.
It now appears that my great accomplishment in the past couple of years is learning to utilize all my drawing skills as I paint. This painting, shown today, is the first one where I feel comfortable in the same manner as when I draw. It feels so right, so good! This comfort in my active approach to painting is very important to the amount of painting I shall do. I admit, this difficulty, my discomfort while painting, has held me back, caused me to go slowly. As I made drawing after drawing, I wondered why I was not painting as much as I was drawing. Well, the answer is... "I did not comprehend the two forms of art-making as the same activity." As last I do. I ordered canvas, and stretchers, for twelve paintings, each 60 X 52 Inches. "Intimidation" (shown today) is 60 X 50 inches.
The title of today's post is my advice to myself. And with it I show the beginning of a new painting, "Man with Women." It is a large canvas, 60 inches tall. Below the painting I show two drawings from yesterday, both on 11 X 14 inch paper. My drawings have become like batting practice for a baseball player. I need to do it every day to remind myself how to behave properly when stepping to the plate, the big time that is painting. My paintings are not only much larger than my drawings, they require many hours of work, while a drawing takes an hour or two. Sustaining the proper modus operandi throughout the many hours of a painting is much more difficult than doing the same through the one or two hours of a drawing. This is my challenge. If I can do this with this painting, "Man with Women," it may become my first truly mature work. All the stuff I've done till now has led me to this, as is always true, but the difference is in my self-knowledge. I have taken many roads to nowhere, but trusting in my abilities and my knowledge, without questioning, by just doing it, means I am somewhere true. So much for my pep talk. After all, this is athletics.
Yesterday started simple enough. The first drawing is a small one, 12 X 9 inches, of high quality, but nothing that break downs a wall. Merely practice. This past week my in-studio time has been sporadic. I don't feel completely in control of my ideas. I continue to avoid paint, but it will return soon, possibly today. Drawing #2 is very good too, and larger at 14 X 11 inches. The second drawing is similar to the first drawing in its simple gathering of previously discovered knowledge. It is in drawing #3 (20 X 16 inches) that I find new conditions. The qualities of the surface and light are different. I do not, however, find this drawing appealing. It looks like a first stab to me; the kind, I imagine, one puts out at the beginning of a knife fight to test one's opponent. These rehearsal stabs are me training myself for a return to painting. I am beginning to be convinced I do not require substantial subject matter to produce significantly expressive paintings. This is a major transformation in theory, previously expressed by everyone from Mark Rothko to Willem de Kooning. I am a late bloomer, unlike our astronomical spring, which has turned exuberant already! My recent drawings have been me braking down all I know so I may break-up my knowledge, toss out the useless ideas, and move forward to better express myself.
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April 2024
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