 Drawing 09·04·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches My road is narrowing. I am walking into a place where centering is true, and anamorphosis is possible. This is a world closer to my kind, to my ability to comprehend concisely, in depth and nuance. Am I not becoming more true to myself? My recent drawings feel true, so they may be true. I am a second guesser. Never do I take an idea to be correct without a considerable body of investigatory repetition, truth tested by research.
Today's drawing feels right and good.
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 Drawing 06·25·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Intention is the beginning and the end. All is lost without intention. It is the mind's eye resting on total recall and total self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is continuously altered. With every confirmation of knowledge comes change. Every experiential activity informs self-knowledge. Such are the steps we take along our true path. Where we are going we do not know.
Yesterday's drawing was a grand experiment in self-knowledge. It is a satisfying step. I know more today because I made this drawing; it is good. I feel satiated by this step. Will I rest, satisfied as I am? No. Satisfaction feeds desire for more satisfaction. I want more. I want more truth. I crave the next step.  Drawing 05·11·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches I am working to get to the promised knowing. It does exist. It is available to me. Every day I am working hard to get there. It is about in-my-face, in-your-face, bold-face truth. This drawing is another step in that direction. Today is another day walking toward the promise.
 Drawing 05·01·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 05·01·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 05·01·2021 No.3, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 05·01·2021 No.4, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 05·01·2021 No.5, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 05·01·2021 No.6, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Six drawings made six insights. These drawings were made seeking truth, emotional feedback, one after the next, each reacting to the previous.
 Drawing 04·13·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 04·06·2021 (state 2), pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Blink then look. First drawing is yesterday's. Second drawing was first performed on 4/6/2021, then revised yesterday; go back to my blog post of 4/7/2021 to see state 1 of the same drawing. Here are examples of solidification of truth and ideas. Ideas compete with truth to find finality as pencil marks.
 Drawing 04·11·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  "No Living Thing Can Exist Without It" (2021 No.3, state 6), oil on canvas, 56x56 inches, {"Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it." - Boris Pasternak, "Doctor Zhivago" (1958)} Nowhere but true. That is my direction. It is coming, it is happening, there is no end in sight, but things can change. I don't want to write, "Things will change," because that is my biggest fear. To be clear, I have no fear of change in my art, I have fear of change in my mindful living, moments by moment.
 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 8), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 03·20·2021 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches  Drawing 03·20·2021 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches My efforts to see incontrovertibly has despair attached. To forsake is easy. Being assured of validity is hard. Clinching truth may be possible, but do you know it when you see it? This question drives me crazy, drives me back to making art, again and again. Here I show three images from yesterday's studio session. The painting, Startle & Lay Siege, makes more sense every time I work on it. Still, doubts are impossible to dispel. The two drawings are risks toward statement simplicity, each easy to comprehend, but is comprehending them rewarding to the soul of their viewers? I will not forsake my journey. I will never stop worrying; perhaps my journey will never satisfy.
 "In the Lost Negative" (2021 No.2, state 6), oil on canvas, 49¾ x58½ inches {We only live between before we are and what we were. In the lost negative you exist... Three ages in a flash: the same child in the same picture, he, I, you..." - Robert Lowell, "For Sheridan"}  Drawing 03·09·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Erasure, or removal by painting over, is recognition of failure to find truth and integrity. This occurred incisively during yesterday's studio session. This is me making good habits into habitual integrity.Being able to say "NO" to elements of an image during its expression, as it is appearing, is becoming my talent. "NO!" means recognition of an idea gone wrong. Erasure, or removal by painting over, is recognition of failure to find truth and integrity. This occurred incisively during yesterday's studio session. This is me making good habits into habitual integrity.
 "Startle & Lay Siege" (2021 No.1, state 2), oil on canvas, 36x45 inches {"I was learning at seventy-one what it is to be deranged. Proving that self-discovery wasn't over after all. Proving that the drama that is associated usually with the young as they fully begin to enter life... can startle and lay siege to the aged." -Philip Roth, "Exit Ghost"}  Drawing 01·17·2021, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches It should not startle, that truth-telling becomes insight and vice-versa. I am waking-up as I am working. Art, and being here being now, are the same thing. Why then, I continually ask, is it so difficult to get to absolute truth? Truth feels like a moving target, but, perhaps, it is I who am moving, while the target is still.
These two, the painting and the drawing I show today, appear to me to be extremely honest. Yet, I am unrelenting in my questioning. I ask, "Is this integrity?" This question drives me to the next answer. Everything I do is a double check on the last thing I did.  Drawing 11·19·2020, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 11·18·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Staying alive and active is paramount. Things are a-poppin'! Invention as simultaneous to being is adamant. Steadfastly I draw in order to exude that which I feel in the moments of feeling and knowing. This is my effort to make the act of production a melding of intellect and emotions. The production is the physical appearance of things called art, drawings and paintings. I have unrelenting determination to make images that construct authentic representation of my innermost knowing and feeling. These art works are me seeking unswerving mindfulness. Yes, I am seeking self-expression at its highest level. I am resolved to make truth while in the act of making-art. This is practice in mindfulness, which, like art, can never reach its ultimate conclusion, its ultimate expression of pure truth and knowledge.
The drawings I show today occurred over two days. I celebrate these as two good steps forward. |
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September 2021
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