 Drawing 08·26·2022 No.2, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 08·26·2022 No.1, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches By drawing I am practicing touch and flow. It is here I an undergoing sensitivity training. The dynamics of value, form, and space (negative and positive), are within me; I am practicing making them outside of me. I am an athlete in training. I am sharing my sensitivity with you. These two drawings are among my very best. Most interesting is the technical aspect of centered composition, which is especially true in drawing No.2. Centered compositions were Picasso's default. A wide range of play in form, value, and space are allowed when centering is achieved. Centering grabs the viewer. When viewer is secured, the possible journey is wide and long, a fullness of dynamics and emotions are allowed.
 Drawing 06·08·2022, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I am a wondering, wandering man. Now what? My recent painting, ”Castle", will soon be in exhibition. Exhibition marks success of artistic communication. Why "Castle"? I make a lot of art, I make a lot of paintings and drawings. People choose to exhibit art they enjoy. Enjoyment denotes relevance. I continue to process during, and after, exhibitions. Constantly I work to come to peace with my natural instincts. Informative is the art people choose to exhibit. Choice by others is an expression of value in an artwork's communication. Yesterday's drawing (shown here) is my reaction to the positive quality expressed by the choice of “Castle” as exhibition worthy. In this drawing I am reacting by wondering. All my art is both question and answer.
 Drawing 09·25·2021, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches I have thinking about the all-over design of the things. My first thought in making the last couple drawings, and the last painting, was about the all-overness of the design. I began yesterday's drawing (the one shown today), with all-over touches of the pencil. This forced me to deal with every aspect of the blank, white paper in front of me; I think successfully. This drawing is dramatic, referential, abstract, well composed, and insists upon the viewer's center stare while begging for the viewer's eye to wander in lust. The black areas dart around the paper, and the lighter value areas are systematically, strategically packed; this makes for easy visual comprehension of the total design while dwelling on the all-over.
 Drawing 12·27·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Looking for nirvana never fails to fail. This drawing is a start in the right direction. Seek and I shall find. This drawing finds merit in directness coupled with complexity. Here are large individual forms, within the large forms complexity is found. This is not the perfect accomplishment. It is a finding; not conclusive, but a verdict of merit that is preparation for my next step. I received a gift of a calendar for 2021. It contains 365 art images, mostly paintings. Its cover shows Vincent Van Gogh's Still Life with Irises (one of Vincent's greatest masterpieces, completed in the last year of his life, 1890). You see one of my inspirations in this painting. Vincent used simple color, simple large forms, but then playfully created a complexity of lines, shapes, and value contrast within the irises. Van Gogh's Still Life with Irises is satisfying on many levels. I absolutely adore this painting. It is a treasured lesson in emotional truth telling.  Vincent Van Gogh, "Still Life with Irises", oil on canvas, 92x73.5 cm, 1890  Drawing 12·11·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Sometimes a drawing is just a drawing. This one is not about yesterday. Of course, it looks back and it looks forward, but it is really about now. Always, I wonder about contrast is scale, contrast in shape and form, contrast in value. This one researches all of that, and more. This play on contrast is an emotional play. It engages the viewer in discord and sedition. It asks for rebellion. It requests one to accept something completely different. It is a rabble on the left impinging on the simple and pure on the right. Who wins this fomentation of discontent? If it works well, you and I see and understand more deeply than before our encounter with this drawing.
 Drawing 06·07·2020 No.1, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches  Drawing 06·07·2020 No.2, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Perception of space is perception of contrast. In these drawings I push value contrast as well as size and shape contrast. The other play in contrast is strict, geometric shapes (created with straight lines), versus organic abstracted forms (created with curves, oval, and rounds). These drawings are insightful. See also these types of contrast in the works of Francis Bacon and Ellsworth Kelly.
 Drawing 04·05·2020, pencil on paper, 16x20 inches Yesterday's drawing combines many of my interests, from round to flat to three-dimensional artifice to compositional carry-through to light and energy to contrast in value and form. The 3D deception is robust. Formally, this is a success, but is it an emotional success? I worry it feels more an intellectual achievement than a grand display of all things me, i.e., emotions and intellect. Not to worry; this is merely a step along to way to all-inclusiveness.
 Drawing 05·30·2019, 16x20 inches, pencil on paper I have many artistic ambitions. I worry I have too many objectives. I aspire to make art that functions well through many means: value, form, negative space, three-dimensional space, two-dimensional space, composition, and much more. I worry this may lead to confusion. A good work of art must show it itself through initial simplicity. A simple entry entices the viewer to become engaged, to pay attention, to look deeper, to see more. Complication is enriching only if the viewer hangs in there to absorb it. I think yesterday's drawing achieves this fullness; simplicity first, then satisfyingly complicated. This drawing is the last I will frame for my one-person Bromfield Gallery exhibition, opening June 5. Enjoy here! But please, see it in person at Bromfield Gallery. It is better than its reproduction.
 Drawing 01·15·2019, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches Rules have been made because history has been made. I grew up with intense interest in visual arts, especially painting and drawing, I studied art history. I looked for models. I looked for information. I gathered it, assiduously and thoroughly. Here I am, playing differently than any model I have ever seen in art history, or in contemporary art. I am myself. Yet, I have not rid myself of the laws I learned from art history and from art school studies. Yesterday's drawing is amazing in its play with form, composition, mark-making, value-contrast, atmospheric and local effects; but it has a deep foundation in the stuff that came before. Is this good or bad? That is a question I continue to answer. This is the process! I have established myself as myself. Now I question the validity of my answers. I am wondering, "Is this drawing remarkable because it plays with rules I invented myself?" OR "Is this drawing just another variation on the rules I have been given by those who made art before me?" Question #2: "Does it matter?" I need to know. Thus I proceed.
 "Burnt Norton" (2018 No.8, state 14), oil on canvas, 63x66 inches {"What might have been is an abstraction; Remaining a perpetual possibility; Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory." -T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"}  Drawing 10·11·2018, pencil on paper, 20x16 inches As my work becomes more sophisticated it is more difficult to reproduce adequately. Yesterday's drawing is richly textured. Its many marks produce a nuanced value structure. This value structure requires special care to produce correctly for viewers here; this fails, even with special care for this drawing's gradations in shading. Remember, I draw with pencil; grey can go anywhere from low value to black. Some lower value grey plays wonderfully against blackness produced by me baring down with strong firmness.
Burnt Norton continues its journey; slow, yet reassuringly confident. |
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