The vacuum I worry about is the bottom swash of crimson color in the painting "2017 No.4". I find myself thinking I should add flourish. Should I add something to identify that space in the three-dimensional artifice that is this painting? Or would said flourish diminish the impact of the painting? As usual there is only one way to find out. Do it. Step Back. Consider. Allow, or disallow. Change if necessary. I am not in the studio today. That may a good thing. I have 24 hours to mull.
Yesterday's drawings are me questioning. They feel a bit without purpose, except as questions. I see little things in these drawings that give me joy. It is in those joyful little things that I understand a way to proceed. The painting "2017 No.3" is complete. It is what it is. I can do more. Process is king. A new painting will begin today! In my drawings I continue to explore individual forms, as individuals and as relatable to one another. The solidity of these drawn compositions, creating as they do a firm sense of three-dimensional space, will probably be the instigating theme of the next painting.
Is means a satisfactory route to an end if the end is a good one? I cannot answer this in political context. In terms of art-making, "No!" For me, art is ongoing research. Day by day I ask questions. Day by day I get answers. Some days the answers are more profound, more meaningful, more important to accept as valid. Through effort, over an enormous amount of time, I find authenticity through the art-making process. Currently it appears buffoonery is accepted by a great number of those who have wealth and political clout. These are the people who have the resources to buy the best art that has been made on this planet. I must ask the question: Should art follow? I say, "No!" Art is a different animal. It is a process based upon personal values and personal truth. It is a practice, like meditation, different for each us but filled with commonality. Through commonality profound communication occurs. Such communication cannot be offensive. Thus the difference between good art and politics.
Yesterday's drawings continue to explore simpler forms against contrasting backgrounds. This, plus the three-dimensions advanced by the foreground forms and shadows, create an artifice of 3D space. Pattern is also being explored as instigator of defined spatial planes, as seen in drawing No.2, and also seen in the current painting on my work wall, "2017 No.2." It just keeps happening. Endless it is because I am unable to exhaust myself. There is pleasure in exhaustion. Such gladness is caused by self-gratifying accomplishment. Sometimes I can indulgently rest when I feel I deserve it. I am not there yet. Yesterday's painting, and drawings, were unusual. The drawings are sparse, more lightly drawn. The painting has unusual color combinations, forms are flattened while sitting in three-dimensional space.
OK. I am working. This is not a party. This is not fun. It is rewarding and important. Whoever said, without qualification, that "making art is a good time," never made art. I search for authenticity, driven by intellect, emotion, and intuition: two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, et cetera.
Yesterday's drawings continue to look for simplicity, using emotive forms and the artifice of three-dimentional space. "Drawing No.2" is more simple than "No.1", but is "No.2" more emotively clear? I think it is. If yes, then that is success. I began a new painting. It is the largest I have done in some time — measuring 76 inches in height. This new painting, "2016 No.18", is more simple in form and format than it the previous one, "2016 No.17". Good or bad idea? We shall see. Like any other research endeavor, art-making is about having a lot of ideas. Some ideas will be good, some, not-so-good! It is recognizing quality, then using that quality as a building block, that eventually makes great art. Lastly, I finished a few final details on the painting "2016 No.17", which I now declare finished. It is reproduced at the end of today's post. There are things about an advanced Van Gogh painting, or drawing, I really like. The representational quality is good, but it is the abstracted visual play which engages me most. While making yesterday's drawings I was occasionally reminded of Vincent Van Gogh's use of line and stroke. As Vincent marked his drawings, and his painting, he thought rhythmically, always cognizant of the overall music within forms and the surfaces of everything, from the three-dimensional quality of the forms themselves to the two-dimensional marks on the surface of the paper or canvas. These drawing's echo Vincent's quality of mark. They make me realize that I am very engaged by the abstraction in his best works. I am constantly involved in similar qualities, but I will not go so far as to say I emulate Vincent Van Gogh's mannerisms.
If you have been watching my recent art, instead of being distracted by my recent falderal, you have observed a gentler touch. Yesterday's drawings, and the newest painting ("2016 No.16"), exhibit a higher degree of contrast in value, and touch, than my previous works. Again, I must complain about reproduction. I try to reproduce my art close to reality, but I am never totally successful. Yesterday's reproduction of "Drawing No.1" is far from true. The grays of the pencil have a wide range of values in the original, not seen in today's reproduction. Therefore, I need to tell you what the original says that may not be evident here.
My gentler touch brings great benefit to my expression. It allows me to create a world on paper that is more light-filled, that has rounder, more robustly three-dimensional forms. This has been a goal of mine. Yesterday's drawings took a positive step toward achieving this goal. Insight! It happened on paper. Yesterday, three things of note occurred: (1) I began a new painting, (2) The process of making yesterday's drawing greatly engaged me, and (3) I heard about the Sinclair Lewis novel, "It Can't Happen Here" (more about this novel can be read below today's post). The new painting is in its nascent stage. I will wait till tomorrow to write more. Yesterday's drawing has elements of the human head in a couple places. It also depicts a three-dimensional, abstracted environment. Its process reminded me that I am a servant. I am on a learning curve. I am developing at a rate that I cannot control. I merely show up in the studio and do it. The discovery, the securing of important self-knowledge, and the making of art (that has substance) occurs. Frank Zappa and his "Mothers of Invention" recorded a song called, "It Can't Happen Here" (from the The Mothers' debut album "Freak Out", released June 27, 1966). That song was one of my favorites in the 1970's. I had no idea, until yesterday, that its title was preceded by the title of the Sinclair Lewis' novel. My interest is, of course, that Sinclair Lewis' novel is about democracy being taken over by an egotistical, bombastic, "I am going to fix everything", politician. It was written as a warning about Hitler's rise to power. It was written about the possibility of this "takeover" occurring in the United States of America. Yes, it sounds like it is about our here and now. I have not read it yet, but I am about to. It is the next novel on my reading list. Quoted from Amazon.com: A friend of mind, Dick Schellens, pointed me to the work of Avery K. Singer. I am not showing her work to you, but I do encourage you to do a web search. Look at her work. It is extremely complex, black & white, is composed three-dimensionally, and is representative (i.e. references real world forms). I have worried that my work sometimes gets too complex, thus leaving the viewer confused. Avery Singer pushes this complexity, hard. She does not use color. That helps. Back to me...
Yesterday I made one simple drawing, then one complex drawing. I like the second one, the complex one, better. It feeds my soul more fully. The complexity asks me to dive in, to wonder. The painting "2016 No. 15" is near satisfaction. Not there yet... The painting "2016 No.15" requires more changes. Yesterday I did not go far enough with the vertical thrust on the left side. I am sampling the results of my recipe: wondering, too much this or too little of that? The diagonal movement of the polka-dotted plane has to be stabilized by a form more substantial than itself. The question, the problem to be solved, is how much verticality on the left is necessary to stabilize the entire composition. The only thing I know for sure is, "More than now!"
I do not like yesterday's first drawing, but the second has something new. In drawing No.2, the main form propels itself, bottom left to upper right. Talking about diagonal thrust, this is different from that seen in the painting "2016 No.15". There is an in, and an out, to the drawing's diagonal; plunging, a three dimensional poke! |
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May 2024
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