Secondly...

     I met with Hannah Barrett for the second time,  on a Sunday afternoon in the AIB studios which were completely empty.  I brought the four paintings above with me.  We discussed scale and size, the diptychs are actually a slightly different size from each other.  I remember reading Motherwell say that "amounts are important to painters."  Without fully understanding this comment I understood it.  We talked about the grouping of the work, and it's striking first impression in comparison to the more subdued stuff we viewed together last time. Hannah pointed out the increased tension in the painting that may be visually due to the black and the higher amount of contrast between the heavily painted areas and those seemingly left. This was an area that we agreed could be exploited further.
     In discussing the the features of the sitters, or the lack thereof in some cases, Hannah brought up some interesting points.  That this black line creates this premise, as does the missing features.  One that becomes less noticeable once the premise is excepted.  It reminded me of Delacroix's comments about drawing specifically about  contour being absent in nature.  I liked this idea of built visual expectations, and the fulfillment of them. There seems to be room to play with this idea more as well.
     We discussed the austerity of the figures, the generic airiness of them, and the relationship that they have with the more obviously abstract elements of the work.  Abstraction as a topic was kicked around, it's support of the image, and the relationship between the paint and the idea of the painting.  It is quite a balancing act and a fragile one at that.  Things never seem abstract while I am painting.
     Overall I felt that Hannah was very good at recognizing what things about my work were central to who I am, the non-negotiables if you will.  She was equally as good at getting me to thing about what things I am willing to change, allow, or abandon.  Lastly we discussed the triple portrait that I see happening in this work, as it relates directly to the plasticity of the paint.  What attracted me to the idea of these paintings was the relationship between the two people, and mine to them.  There is a very underhanded crisis, or tempered frenzy as I see it.  A psychological negotiation, or posturing.  Those are the people I am painting.  Up close, the subject takes on a less literal face.  It is the story of me, the making of these things, my own personal crisis.  The third portrait is that of the material itself.  A portrait of paint.  The action should match the feeling in my view, like color.  Touch and color are so intuitive.  When asked how I choose color, I am usually at a loss for words.  I try not to choose it when possible.

Strunk & White Painting

     I have several books from which I draw inspiration, and none more than Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.  Many of the suggestions, definitions, or editorializing sound to me like plain good advice for the visual artist.  The book has a mimetic quality as it shows good writing first, and describes it second.  Like many books worth reading it is worth keeping.  It was a classic when I was young and I am not even sure how widely used it is today.  The relationship between White and Strunk is well illustrated and there is a subtle layer of biography amidst what seems like a manual.
     As a painter, it is important to learn from good painters.  It is equally important to learn from good teachers, and from the pages of The Elements of Style I will offer some small excerpts that I think are more relevant to my work than words of most painters, Delacroix and Motherwell aside.  I would call these rules or declarations "meaningful" if Strunk hadn't defined the word as a "bankrupt expression."  The cover has gone through many classic phases itself, this cover on the left is one of my favorites.  I can only imagine what the version that I buy for my children will look like.  Known for a while as "the little book" it was one dude's thoughts, recorded by a former student, on the principles of composition and "a few matters of form."

"Omit needless words!"

"Vigorous writing is concise.  A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary parts.  This requires not that the writer make all sentences short or avoid all detail and treat subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

"If you don't know how to say a word, say it loud!  Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?"

"Allude.  Do not confuse with elude.  You allude to a book.  you elude a pursuer.  Note, too, that allude is not synonymous with refer.  An allusion is an indirect mention, a reference is a specific one."

"Allusion.  Easily confused with illusion.  The first means indirect reference, the second means an unreal image or a false impression."

"Divided into.  Not to be misused for composed of.  The line is sometimes difficult to draw;  doubtless plays are divided into acts, but poems are composed of stanzas."

"Fix.  Colloquial in America for arrange, prepare, mend.  The usage is well established.  But bear in mind that this verb is from Figere: 'to make firm,' 'to place definitely.'"

"Partially.  Not always interchangeable with partly.  Best use in the sense of 'to a certain degree,' when speaking of a condition or state: 'I'm partially resigned to it.'  Partly carries the idea of a part as distinct from the whole- usually a physical object."

"Style has no such separate entity;  It is nondetachable, unfilterable."

"The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity."

"Do not overstate."

On Black Nights

     A couple of long nights in the studio, and long hours between nights.  My studio is cold and the days have been short.  For the first time ever....what you are seeing in these pictures IS actually underpainting, not something that I am preserving that is ambiguous as such, but a flexible and changing template for the structure of the picture.  I am remembering something Matt Saunders said at our last residence, that painters basically make a support, build their structure, make a drawing, and color it.  This is a terrible explanation of what the process entails, but it is nonetheless difficult to argue any part of it.  

     I have been really trying to be hyper aware of what the differences are between the blacks that I am using as I move away from umbers for the time being.  The lamp and mars act quite differently from one another.  The Mars is very permanent compared to the lamp, which has the perishable nature of a charcoal drawing.  It lacks tactile or tonal potential in comparison.  This has both it's use and it's drawbacks.  I intend to try ivory next.  I like to spend a considerable amount of time destroying the drawing, which only works if it has some durability.  I noticed that Rob Sullivan used ivory in his underpainting, and he mentioned lots of rags and large brushes, something that I have been reading is very common in this phase of the painting.  I have never enjoyed pictures of myself but in documenting my work I noticed a similarity between the way in which I would allow my photo to be taken and it's parallel with the way that I see the subjects of my paintings.  Until I see other paintings or even the real world, I believe that people look this way.  It is mostly how I feel that they look.  "The things that are most real to me are the illusions which I create with my painting.  Everything else is a quicksand." (Delacroix)

Rob and Angela

     (details)

     

     "The first of all principles is the need to make sacrifices.  Isolated portraits, however perfect, cannot form a picture.  Personal feeling alone can give unity, and the one way of achieving this is to show only what deserves to be seen."

     This was a quote from the journals of Eugene Delacroix, a book that has been providing me with much to consider.  "What is a black and white drawing but a convention to which the beholder has become so accustomed that with his mind's eye he sees a complete equivalent in the translation from nature."  The concept of a picture that lives between the painted and drawn world is one that appeals to me.  It is such an artificial world because as Delacroix reminds us "contour and touch are equally absent in nature."  His description of what he calls "touch" is definitely a component in painting that Delacroix recognizes second only to the imagination as critical for good work.

     I have been spending some time revisiting Doerner's book on materials particularly the analysis of specific master techniques, or in most of the cases, mixed techniques.  The amount of tempura used by the Dutch for example in underpainting was a surprise to me.  Doerner's description of El Greco's techniques are shockingly simplified, and it seems that all my favorite painters used something called venetian turpentine, which judging from the descriptions had some kind of flex gel or resin components I am guessing.

     Theses two books make great tandem reading especially as they relate to both of the author's favorite subject, Rubens.  Delacroix's intimation that the "idea" should be of paramount concern to the painter was a relief coming from such a technician.

     In these ditychs or this diptych, these double portraits or this double portrait; I am thinking about the triangle made between two people painted, especially when split into separate but connected canvases, and the artist/viewer.  The amount of time elapsed between the seemingly divergent events in the two sets of paintings, the time spent painting vs. viewing, as well as the curious nature of the implied simultaneity of this moment or these moments are all parts of the soup.  When I look at these, I wonder am I this good, or this bad.  "Experience ought to teach us two things; first, that we should do a great deal of correcting; secondly, that we must not correct too much." (Delacroix)

     All this has me remembering a quote from Lucian Freud.  "One thing I have never got used to, is not feeling the same from one day to the next, although I try to control it as much as possible by working absolutely all the time.  I just feel so different every day that it is a wonder that any of my pictures ever work out at all." (Man with a Blue Scarf)