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Archive for the ‘Quote’ Category

Work Generator

Posted in Motivation, Quote, tagged , , , , on May 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Francis Bacon
Portrait of Michel Leiris 1976

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As you work, the mood grows on you. There are certain images which suddenly get hold of me and I really want to do them. But it’s true to say that the excitement and possibilities are in the working and obviously can only come in the working.

–Francis Bacon

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I am swamped in work today. I say that a lot and it might sound awful to many folks. But for me it is the best possible situation because being at work means that, like Bacon says above, I am amidst the excitement and possibilities that come with working. Thinking about ideas, mulling what you’re going to do has a place but they are worthless nothings until they go into process, become work. Then they usually become something altogether different because the work allows you to flesh out what the mind alone couldn’t imagine.

The process of working is the true generator of ideas.

There have been many artists through time who have expressed this same sentiment, that doing work generates new work, creates new possibilities. I know that it is true for myself.

Breakthroughs in the work always come while working, with hands in paint and eyes and mind straining to see where the piece before me ends and the next begins.

Here’s one of my favorite inspirational pieces from artist Chuck Close that very much says the same thing: Don’t wait on inspiration–make your own!

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the… work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.

I am taking that advice and just doing what I do. You do what you do, okay?

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Endless Becoming

Posted in Quote, tagged , , , , on May 10, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I have about two more weeks to get ready for my solo show, Haven, that opens on June 1 at the Principle Gallery so I have little time to spare at the moment. So excuse me for doing a little shorthand here by using an older painting (No Way Home from 2009) and a thought-provoking quote from the late historian Lewis Mumford.

This idea of endless becoming transforming into being intrigues me, making me wonder if the work I am doing has made that jump.

And how does one know?

That might be both my breakfast and lunch because I’ll be chewing on it for quite some time today.

Time to get to work.

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Stars and Satellites

Posted in Biographical, Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on May 8, 2018| 7 Comments »

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“A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?” Pointless, really…”Do the stars gaze back?” Now, that’s a question.” 

― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

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Above is a new painting that is going with me down to Alexandria for my show, Haven, at the Principle Gallery, opening June 1. I am calling this 20″ by 16″ canvas Stars and Satellites. It’s a continuation of a series of recent works that are primarily stark nightscapes with skies composed of shards of color in an almost stained-glass manner. At the junctures where shards meet are points of bright color— the light of the stars and the planets of the night sky.

I think I have written here about the meditative effect of painting these pieces, how there is a feeling of both intense concentration and non-thought that blocks out all other things. If the television is on or music is playing, I don’t really hear it. If delivery vans or cars come up my driveway, I am totally unaware even though they directly pass in front of the large windows before which I work.

It’s like I am in that space in that time, especially in the first stages of composing the picture. All is quiet and all that moves through my mind is the simple geometry of placing blocks of red oxide in a way that makes sense in that part of my brain that is scanning the whole of the composition. It’s one of my favorite parts of my process of painting, this state of being so mentally attached to the surface of the painting.

Another favorite part comes later as the painting evolves from its red oxide skeleton. This moment comes after layer after layer of color is added and the painting crosses a tipping point where it suddenly becomes a fully fleshed being, an entity with its own life force and its own voice.

That is a really gratifying moment, one that makes me think of Carl Sagan describing the Voyager space mission and how it would travel through time and space as a reminder of our existence as a people and a civilization long after our Sun had turned our planet into an ember, long after we had ceased to walk this earth.

And in a way many of those stars in the night sky serve that same purpose. Many are the final traces of light from stars that have been extinguished eons ago yet remind us of their existence.

This piece has, for me, a feeling of an interdependence between the moon, the stars and we here on earth. We each need the other in order to be seen, to serve as a reminder that we have existed in this universe, if only for short time.

Like John Lennon sang in Instant Karma: Well, we all shine on/Like the moon and the stars and the sun…

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Rouault Monday

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Quote, tagged , on May 7, 2018| 2 Comments »

Too busy this morning but I can always find a few minutes to take in some work from Georges Rouault (1871-1958). His work has for me a real sense of rightness, a certitude that makes even his roughest brushstrokes seem both perfectly placed and necessary.

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In Shadows

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , on May 4, 2018| 2 Comments »


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How well do we know our own shadows?

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Knowing Klimt

Posted in Favorite Things, Quote, tagged , on May 3, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Whoever wants to know something about me – as an artist which alone is significant – they should look attentively at my pictures and there seek to recognise what I am and what I want.

—Gustav Klimt

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Controlling the Narrative

Posted in Biographical, Motivation, Quote, tagged , on April 30, 2018| 1 Comment »

 

An artist only has so much control over how their work is seen and spoken of by others. The creation itself speaks loudest for the artist, of course. But it is also represented in words by gallery personnel, museum staffs and others. Each individual interpretation adds to or detracts from the work. The artist has little say unless they make an effort to control the narrative with their own words.

I know that I have tried to do this, with varying degrees of success. I felt that in order to do this I would have to try to be honest with my own assessments of the work and what I was seeing in it so that the viewer’s experience might be honestly enhanced. Hopefully, a little more depth into the work would be provided.

Whether this matters in the long term, I do  not know. But for the time being, it gives me the feeling that I am somewhat in control of my narrative. Here’s a post from a few years back that speaks a bit more about artists speaking about their work and the difference between doing so with words that actually say something substantive and those that are mere fluffy word clouds.

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David Hockney- Mulholland Drive 1980

It is very good advice to believe only what an artist does, rather than what he says about his work.

 –David Hockney

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When I first read this quote from the great British artist David Hockney, a painter whose work I admire and always find very interesting, I wanted to be offended. After all, I am an artist who has said plenty about his work through the years– this blog and gallery talks being evidence of that– and have tried to be always transparent and forthcoming when talking about my work. But even so, I nodded in agreement when I read his words.
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Part of my own desire to be honest and open about my work came from the frustration I felt in reading other artist’s writings that were filled with ArtSpeak, that way of seeming to say something important and meaningful without really saying anything at all. The words danced around all form of meaning and never fully jibed with the images that accompanied the words, leaving me with a single word resonating in my mind.
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Bullshit.
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And I know bullshit. I was a longtime bullshit artist. I sold swimming pools and automobiles– yes, I was even a used car salesman!– to the public for quite some time. I knew that you could sell by focusing on the strengths of the product and by dancing around questions about its drawbacks. Fill any voids with words that sounded like they were filled with meaning but really made no commitment to anything.
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For me, there came a time when I was determined to not deal anymore in that manner of speaking and when I finally came to painting, I knew I didn’t want my work to fall into that pool of bullshit.  I wanted to tightly control how I represented my work and to be completely open about it.  It’s whole purpose for me was my own honest expression and I want

David Hockney- Arranged Felled Trees

ed people to be able to witness that without a crap filter between them and the work.

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For the most part, I feel that I have been able to maintain that through these last several years.  Oh, occasionally I feel myself straying off the path but I simply remind myself that the product I am representing is the core of my self and once I cross that line I would be betraying everything art has provided for me.
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But these are just words and maybe you should take them with Hockney’s advice in mind.

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Balance

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Motivation, Painting, Poetry, Quote, tagged , , on April 27, 2018| 3 Comments »

Marsden Hartley- Himmel 1915

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I have come to the conclusion that it is better to have two colors in right relation to each other than to have a vast confusion of emotional exuberance. . . I had rather be intellectually right than emotionally exuberant.

–Marsden Hartley
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I have been a fan of the paintings of Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) for some time now. I was reading about him earlier and came across this quote  that caught my attention, making me think about what I hoped to accomplish in my own work.
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I often speak about creating work that has an immediate emotional impact achieved with colors and forms. But maybe, as Hartley’s words have prompted me to think, this first purely visceral and emotional impact is pure exuberance. Just a gut reaction that comes in that instant before the mind has time to engage.
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A shout that makes you turn and look.
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While that is good and desired, it’s doubtful that it can stand by itself and have a lasting effect unless it has an intellectual aspect to engage the viewer’s mind. There needs to be a balance between the mind and the gut.
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If you turn at hearing a shout and the person doing the shouting is shouting just to make you turn and has nothing more to say to you, you keep moving and soon forget that person. But if you turn and the shouter has something more to offer, you might linger a bit to consider what is being said and engage in a conversation.
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When you do move on, you take something from this engagement with you, something that will stay with you.
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I am not sure this an apt analogy but it immediately came to mind on reading Hartley’s words. I don’t exactly know how this mind/gut balance works or how it can be accomplished in reality. Maybe even consciously trying to do so throws the whole thing off kilter.
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It’s early in the morning and I am just thinking here. Time to go try to put it into action…

Marsden Hartley- Portrait of a German Officer 1914

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Jacob Lawrence

Posted in Advice, Quote, tagged , on April 25, 2018| 2 Comments »

Jacob Lawrence- This Is Harlem 1943

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My belief is that it is most important for an artist to develop an approach and philosophy about life – if he has developed this philosophy, he does not put paint on canvas, he puts himself on canvas.

—Jacob Lawrence
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Exactly right.
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I often echo the advice in these words from the great Jacob Lawrence when speaking to students. Having all the talent and skill in the world doesn’t matter if one doesn’t have a viewpoint or don’t have something to say to the world.
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Having a philosophy about life and a need to express their viewpoint guides the artist, allowing them to make the most of whatever talents and skills they do possess.

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The Ease of Not Knowing

Posted in Painting, Quote, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , on April 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

–Eckhart Tolle
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This new painting has been sitting within my sight for several days now. I can only speak for myself but I find it really easy piece in which to withdraw, imagining myself in that place, in that moment under that sky. There’s a sense of ease and comfort in it for me.

It just feels right.

Yet there is something enigmatic about it. While there is an air of easiness and acceptance in the painting, there is also a feeling that there is some sort of questioning taking place.

Perhaps a wondering of the why’s and what’s and how’s of this universe and our place in it?

Or the existence of a god or gods? Or the nature of good and evil?

Or perhaps something less weighty.

But even with this questioning there is still a great calmness and ease, as though the Red Tree in this time and place knows that having those answers would not make this particular moment any better.

And perhaps in that moment when a question does not require a response, an answer shows itself.

Perhaps…

 

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