New Year; New Maxims

The impromptu color combinations on my stirring sticks often suggest color combinations that might work in the paintings.

2.11.13

Every year, I try to encapsulate some lessons I feel I'm learning, or need to begin learning, for my artistic practice. This year, they emerged while frenetically preparing the paintings for my latest show, and were fine-tuned while talking with both friends and strangers at the show's opening and First Friday receptions. They are as follows (with some explanation): 

Loosen Up

My tendency is to be very tight with my paint application, relying heavily on taping, masking, stencils, tracing, compassing, and so on. One visitor, a stranger to me, but a fellow painter in his sixties, complimented my work at the exhibit, but then said, "these lines (pointing to a work with harshly taped yellow lines) make me say, why the hell doesn't he just paint it?" And then he laughed and reminded me that he liked my work, and that he felt he had the right to speak with me this way, since he had been painting for fifty years or so. I was fine with this, and thanked him for his candor, and realized he had touched on something that I'd been feeling tapping me on the back, but hadn't taken the time to mentally articulate. Thus, the first maxim: not a hard rule, by any means - I'm not going to give up the tape, the stencils, or the masking, since these are my tools - but I'm also going to keep a reminder near that I should also rely on those other, even simpler tools at my disposal: steady hands; quality brushes that make a good edge - a human edge - all by themselves; and an ease of application which comes from knowing these tools well. 


Mix it Up

This one is loosely based on a maxim from a previous year, where I saw the need to begin adding more diverse paint application styles to my repertoire: not just straight, flat paint, but scumbling; spraying, with spray paint or stiff brush; thin paint layers, and layers bleeding through each other. In other words, allow the paint and other materials to be all that they can be; get them to do as much as is possible. Make the paint itself the most versatile tool it can be. So, in a way, this maxim is a reminder that this needs to continue. I thank the work of Corey Antis, which I sat with for hours at a time while monitoring Tiger Strikes Asteroid, for originally pushing me to this realization.


Keep it Up

Ultimately, the most simple and the most challenging one of the three: consistency. At my new location, I've resolved to eek out as much time from my week as possible, without unduly stealing from other important parts of my life, to spend in the studio. Keep plowing forward, expecting a good crop to result. An old adage, but a good one. This is tempered, of course, by my feeling that I need to squeeze out of every element in a picture the most it can provide. In other words, work with less elements, but make each element work as hard as it possibly can for the overall benefit of the picture. This is not easy, but very satisfying when it is working well.


I plan on making a sign of these to hang in the studio this year. Let's see how they look at the end of the year, what they might lead to pictorially, and which maxims might emerge as I move on.

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A Wink and a Nod...

 

Corey Antis, untitled (black room)

Three not entirely unrelated notes from this past week and a half:

Note 1: a Wink

I’ve been reading a book (much of my reading takes place on the bus these days) entitled Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination, by Walter Wink. I won’t go into detail about the content right now, but suffice it to say it’s been shifting my worldview slightly…as well as my thoughts about the differences between “nonresistance” and “nonviolence”. For anyone interested in activist theology, neo-Anabaptist leanings, and a call to rid ourselves (as Christians) of the destructive myth of redemptive violence, I would highly recommend it. I certainly don’t agree with everything Wink is saying, but as the best writers do and the best writing does, Wink keeps the questions and discussions open. It is masterfully done, and highly thought-provoking.

Note 2: and a Nod

An artist whose work has been highly influential to my own over the last few months is Corey Antis. His work was featured in Tiger Strikes Asteroid’s January show, and its qualities have been resonating with me ever since. In fact, one Saturday as I gallery sat, I distilled some of what I thought was highly effective about Antis’ work, and re-defined it for myself as a form of several “New Year (work) resolutions” (it all centers on consistency and standards, essentially):

·         Paintings all collared and edged in same white paint.

·         Three at a time; colors between.

·         More steps and more creativity with tape usage.

·         More uniform sizes, and standard collar depth.

·         Edges of found surfaces, also edged in white.

·         Don’t be afraid of texture!

·         Be more disciplined with periodic making of panels.

I’ll talk more about this once I upload some pictures of my recent work.

Note 3: Class

Some of my more dedicated readers may remember my postings from this past fall and winter on the class I led at the Barnes Foundation, Investigating the Spiritual in Art. I am working on a syllabus/concept for a new class for this coming fall. The (rough) working title is Humans and the Modern Landscape. Briefly, it will deal with the two overriding concerns (as I see them) in the Barnes collection: the ensembles, which are wall arrangements which are both internally constructed and didactic, and also connect with the collection as a whole, philosophically, psychologically and formally (and I’d add, unsurprisingly, spiritually); and the two dominant formats of modern paintings (the bulk of our collection), namely, portraits or depictions of humans, and landscapes or depictions of environment or the natural world. The class sessions will be constructed of contrasts: urban/rural; civilized/savage; European/American, etc.

The Spiritual in Art class was loosely arranged around a wonderful book, An Art of our Own: The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art, by Roger Lipsey. The search is on for a book which could function in the same way, for this new class concept. 

Any ideas?

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2010: Janus and Ebenezer

As if anyone could have a favorite Roman god, or as if it mattered, my choice (and I've probably mentioned this here before) would be Janus, the Roman god of doors, gates and doorways. And his namesake month, January (one of the last vestiges of his power, save the Janus Capital Group with its occasional television commercials) is nearly here.

So why Janus? Several years ago, a friend of mine pointed out to me that he noticed I liked hanging around in doorways...while conversing; while visiting; to survey both the room I was looking at, but also to have one foot in the space from where I was coming. Some might see this as wishy-washy or indecisive, and there is an element of that to it, I admit...but there is a particular personality that would be attracted to a limnal existence, object or space.

Without waxing solypsistic, allow me to explore this for a moment...I love tradition, but I equally treasure quality newness (not novelty...unless it's kitschy or over the top; for some reason that seems okay). The past is as rich (or often richer) with potential to be mined for experience and movement within life, as the future is...though neither is better than the other; it's a continuum.

In fact, especially in my work and practice, all new things (artwork, writing, etc.) have a deeply-set root in the past, no matter how unprecedented it may seem. And this is something I readily admit. Portions of two separate books I'm reading right now, On the Dehumanization of Art, a seminal essay by Ortega Y Gasset, and Markings, by Dag Hammarskjold, are informing my thoughts about the new year. In the Ortega Y Gasset essay, he references the inevitability and the sway held over contemporary artists, by the past, and the varying ramifications of one's approach to dealing with that fact. In his introduction to Markings, W. H. Auden is clear that a person is not able to really know themselves better than others can; there are always a few important details that only the person in question can provide, but otherwise, the largest percentage of our psychological outline, so to speak, our friends and acquaintances are able to fill in more fully. You would like to know yourself? Then keep in conversation with your friends and family. As good a resolution as any for the new year.

I think too, that the attraction to Janus is related to my additional love of the idea of an Ebenezer; a "stone of help"; a memorial set up in 1 Samuel 7 to acknowledge that "thus far, God has helped us". Another related tidbit, which accentuates even more the "almost, but not yet" aspect, is one of my favorite Scripture verses, where a man implores Christ, "Lord, I believe; help me with my unbelief". Seen this way, it's both an acknowledgment AND celebration of the double-edged reality of our humanness: our fallibility, and God's perfection. I think Janus comes from a similar impulse: a desire to both celebrate and acknowledge the past, AND what is to come.

So, all that said, I move forward cautiously into this new year, 2010 (and I regret I did not adopt the term "aughts" before now, as in "aught-9"), fully acknowledging that a step through a new gate does not mean a purging of all things from the previous year...we all carry the past years like dust on our shoes; some of it eventually causing a pleasing patina; the rest of it shaking off as we move through to better and different things.

What do I hope for this new year? I will only list a few things, and perhaps you will find some common to yours in this group...(in no particular order):

-increased health (I need to begin an exercise regimen).
-sufficient money to cover our bills (thank the Lord that, little by little, he's provided for us thus far...our personal Ebenezer).
-ability to get a new roof (desperately needed)
-either be able to keep my current studio, or find another appropriate space for my art work.
-pursue publishing of some of my writing.
-continuing success of Vicki's work, online business and otherwise (shameless plug: www.piccolotakesall.com)
-increased civility in the neighborhood, city, state, country and world (fostered by my very own actions and attitude).

AND, I think we'll stop there...I could go on.
Blessings to you, reader, and yours as you also move through the gate, and into a new year. Physically, it's "just another day", but psychologically and historically it holds much more import than that. And our psychological life looms larger than most of us like to admit.

So, raise a toast to Janus! And thank God for that Ebenezer.

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