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)

Meeting Hannah

     I met last week with my new mentor, Hannah Barrett.  I had plenty of time to think about the process as I drove from Boston to Brooklyn to meet with her.  I specifically brought three paintings that were fairly microcosmic of how I work but were in an early or green state.  I am holding off on adding color to them for longer than usual, I hope to remove even more from them and get even more reductive. I wanted to have something post-residence that took into consideration all that I had taken from those many hours of introspection.  This triptych is titled Koko in Black Leggings.  The meeting was well worth the drive.
     Some highlights of the discussion were the idea of simultaneity when portraying another yet trying to project oneself, the differences between a portrait and a domestic scene, and the survival of portraiture in England as a genre in contrast to its fifty year disappearance in America.  We discussed concepts like economy and illusion, and the illusion of virtuosity or what Stuart called a code of mastery.  We discussed the ever-popular topic of finish in my work, why evocations of under-painting are always referenced.  For once, it wasn't the thinness of the paint but the umber accused as the culprit. The idea of a painting that is between a drawing and a painting was thrown around as something we both appreciated, and the overall calligraphic nature of my drawing style was analyzed for content.  We discussed my interest in the fragility of an image, both as it exists on the canvas, and the cavalier or passive nature with which a contemporary audience views painting.  We talked about the effects and the possible misinterpretations of the erasure or subtractive components in the work.  For the first time ever she brought up what misinterpretations I may be willing to allow, something that before the critique I had not thought of.  Hannah also pointed out some parameters or set of constraints or conventions that I work within, and she really tried to thematically tie together the pieces that I brought with the ones that I had in digital format.
     Hannah thought that it was obvious that the clearest and most successful decision that I have made is the consistent use of economy, which she quickly linked to mortality.  This relationship was discussed as it pertains both to the fleeing moment such as childhood and also the moving target that is the portrait including the paradox of the singular moment or the true present.  After admitting to Hannah’s delight that my life is pretty boring, and that authenticity requires me to include this component into my work, she commented on an obvious interest of mine in the information in a painting which is absolutely essential, and a resistance to any information which is extraneous.  She brought up Whistler, like she wanted to make my day.
     Partial story, incomplete idea of perfection, open narrative, bad drawing and honesty…it is all there. Going forward, Hannah challenged me to think about other conventions such as the erasure that I am willing to part with.  Ironically, she thought I could be mindful of scale and work bigger (I went smaller just for this trip and brought some knee-highs which made my work a bit more sentimental I think.)  She recommended some good books, some of which I already purchased.  In general, I am completely thrilled about my new mentor.  I learned a lot, but felt like I was talking to a friend.  Feels good when something works out.  Hannah emailed me yesterday to wish me luck. She ended the message, “stay boring.”

Winter Preparation

     My winter studio has less glamorous lighting, but it is forty degrees warmer.  I work in the basement when my studio shack gets too nippy.  You have seen this part of the show before if you have been on my blog.  This is where I think, avoid work, plan, and dream.  I am stretching two of the standard sizes I have been working in for a while, 44 x 52s and 22 x 34s, and several of each.  I have a few series in mind.  Linen, oil primer...etc.

Moving Pictures

     The first thing that I have to do now that residency two is over, is move a lot of work around.  Shuffle the deck chairs.  Many paintings that still need a brushmark here or a glaze there, even from the first residency, and I plan on getting to them.  Stacks of paintings now rotate between a couple places in the back of my studio and in the corner of my son's room.  I remember a great documentary on Alice Neel I recently saw where her sons recalled the stacks leaning all over the place, and how regular it was.  My studio is only 10 x 15 feet, and Brit Snyder is the only person who has been in it in the ten years since it has been built. I am spending some time taking notes on my own work, doing inventory of my paintings and painting materials, and estimating what I may need for my next wave of work.

Residence Number Two

These is basically the nine paintings (the tenth may not make it) that I am bringing my second residency in January. They are all in different stages of completion...all mostly done. I have learned that I work slowly, or with much time between sessions on individual pieces.

My Ugly Truth 12.14.12

Last night, after the tragedy in Connecticut, I took some time to reflect as a parent, teacher, and artist on the relationship that this event has with my life, outlook, and work.  I  thought about my painting a lot….in my work, there is a world where things like innocence, respect, goodness….all things tangentially related to beauty can live, and live unadulterated.  It calms me to think that the world can look this way to someone seeing my paintings long from now.  I disagree with many scholars that beauty however relates to truth, because the truth is pretty ugly on days like this.  The Illusion of beauty becomes an ideal or a hope, maybe a position of mourning.  For me, painting reminds me that there are things that transcend the time, place, and world we live in.  

I am horrified that my daughters will hear about this incident in the upcoming days, but i am even more saddened by the fact that they will inevitably know the truth.  My truth is the state that they are in of never knowing, which can only happen in a painting….its a lie that I have to believe for their future.  Why would someone believe in something that they knew wasn't true?  Because the truth is often THAT dismal.  I don't think that beauty can ever be realized when the entire story is told, which is why I like to destroy parts of my paintings that give too much.  I am protecting an untruth of sorts, but one that truthfully expresses my own view.  One of slight desperation and disbelief.  I try to honor the rare occurrences that counteract those feelings and preserve them in plastic.  

As my kids sleep upstairs, I think of all the teachers that I work with that told me yesterday upon leaving my school to hug the kids extra hard tonight…i didn't.  It doesn't take events like this for me to feel that way.  The passage of time, another theme in my work, is always so sad to me, mostly because truth is at the end of this cycle and aesthetic truth is all i am interested in…please lie to me about the rest.

God bless us.

Being Watched

     I have met with my mentor three times now an we have talked a lot about the psychology involved in the multiple portrait, something I am also reading a lot about particularly in Richard Brilliant's book "Portraiture," recommended by Tony.  This piece is one of a couple that I want to make about my daughters watching television.  I am titling it "TV Heads" and I think that the proportion or scale reflects such a complex activity, especially when someone is watching you watch TV.  This is roughly 44 x 52 inches and un-cropped.

Winter Games

     I am temporarily titling this triptych "Schumann, Pepperoni, mini-blinds."  It is about the portrait in general, and what it entails.  I see this as a triple portrait three times, with a distinct shift in focus and intent with regard to the physical and visual dialogue.  This piece is largely about cadence and the senses as the title implies, and I am also trying to show a variety of painting sensibilities under one roof as they apply to the individual.  The paintings are a bit larger as they have been cropped in this collage and the color is more monochrome thus far...the blue in the bottom right of the third is cool but false.  I was working with a slightly wet ground which is tricky and something that I want to make sure to moderate closely.  They are drying with the windows open to my studio and sub-freezing air rushing in.

Looking Ahead

     These are the six paintings minus one that is being exhibited that I am currently working on, and they are in varied states of completion.  The two in orange are a diptych with the old man on the left and are a little more than 5 feet tall.  The paintings of the woman and the man at tables have been re-stretched, then cut down and re-stretched again.  I have done this a lot, I just decide the painting has become about one thing not two, or one person.  I left the remnants of the other person in both paintings and I like the way it looks as a partial telling of a story.  The painting in the top right was from a background of a painting brought back from Japan where I cut both foreground characters out and it went from a painting that was 4 by 5 feet to one that is 2 x 3.  The top left painting is from a series that I am picking up after a very long hiatus in a response to a recently proposed theme critique based on the word "when."  I gave up on the painting years go and decided to basically repaint it right on top, something I have never really done.  I am experimenting with tinted grounds, oil primer, linen, alternative mediums and sennelier paints that contain a safflower oil base.  I have 3 large canvases stretched and hope to do some landscape work as well as more situational narratives that continue to explore the theme of "the visit."

Getting Back

   Upon my return it was very difficult to get my head around my new schedule.  I met with my mentor Richard Raiselis, and had great talks about frescoes, Manet, psychology, materials, and so on.  It was very productive, but short of re-retching the work that I brought home in rolls from Japan and making new canvases that I had planned before I left, there were many days in September that painting took a back seat to life.  I had been here before, so I braved the storm and I now feel that I am through the other side.  In this kind of predicament, there is no replacement for experience.

Departure

     I asked the subject of my work for the summer to take a small break from her own endless work schedule so that I could get a picture of her looking at this series of paintings.  She could not understand what was so interesting about her life, and viewed the work with skepticism.  At ninety, she does not have much time to reflect, only to dig, plant, mend, and maybe visit when that is done.  All of these paintings need work after transporting them back home.  To the right in the bottom left picture are crates full of recently dug potatoes...to her that's real work and she takes a lot of pride in that.

     All seven paintings are rolled up and wrapped with tape and craft/wax paper, and my stretchers are fastened to my easel waiting for more abuse next summer.  One last contribution from the flatbread truck, and everything pushed behind the farming tools and baby potatoes ready to be replanted.  The next adventure is getting these onto a plane and home after a couple days of rest in Tokyo.  My next post will be the re-stretching of this work thousands of miles from where it was made, and the continuance of my reflection and painting based on photos, drawing, memory, and yes...feelings.

Just Plain Air

     Today I got back to how I began painting more than fifteen years ago.  Packing up all my stuff, and tailgating Henri style.  The six paintings that I have been working on are ten days away from being stripped from their stretchers and rolled into a tube, so every minute of drying time is necessary.  For this reason I am forced to take a break from the figural works I have been happily struggling with.  Since painting is how I cope, and breathe, some good old fashioned on-site work was well deserved.  Although this was made with oil and canvas, I wouldn't compare it to what guys like the brothers Meyer are doing, this is more of a sketch or drawing to me.  There is no labor-intensive component, very little subtractive methods or nervous anticipation.  No big financial risk with regards to materials, and little expectations.  No underpainting, drawings in preparation or real contemplative spirit...just painting.  Mostly I spent this time working on calligraphic brushwork and playing with emphasis, focus, and color...too much color.  Ironically this painting will sell first if my own history repeats itself.
     I watched a documentary film about a bunch of art experts trying to determine the credibility of a dumpster diver who found an alleged Pollack and was searching for its provenance.  The movie is great if you have not seen it, but the sticking line was from an art historian whom when looking at the piece simply denied it's viability by saying, "It doesn't feel like a Pollack, it doesn't fly like a Pollack, it doesn't fail like a Pollack."  And rather than discredit the great tradition of outdoor painting, I would say that in the context of my own work, this just doesn't fail like a Fontinha.  That being said, tomorrow I will get out there and try to see what I can do about it in a second session.  I will try to post updates as to the state of my figural work while it lives in this purgatory stage of drying.  I look forward to re-stretching them and giving them some final moments of struggle in my studio back home.

A New Visitor

     I have been thinking about why I am working on this series about "the visit."  Above is the beginning of numbers three and four.  A visit requires planning, there are economic considerations, often it means more with time and space.  A visit is constructed and has a precarious set of circumstances within.  Sometimes after a visit I wish I said more or less, and many times this seemingly meaningless event takes an unexpected or important turn.  There is a vulnerability, an area of feeling opened.  These are all things that are true of the painting process, as well as a curious need for human contact.  Why do we do it?  I have thought a lot about a comment from a colleague whom I respect about my figures looking wooden.  This has made me think of the people who first turned me on to painting, particularly Max Beckmann.  His woodcuts and paintings are only separated by color.  Stiff celebrations of drawing and composition, layers of hands like limbs. Wood has a life after death that is intriguing to me.  There is a static breath in these wooden figures that I enjoy.   They are easier to understand than actual people.  After all, movement can be implied in a figural painting, but we know they are still.

     In regards to the paint itself, I am enjoying the increase in awkwardness, and the decision to be less decisive in areas.  I don't want to paint pretty things, or things that entirely make sense, that would be really abstract.  These paintings are of the same subject, my ninety year old Grandmother-in-law.  In these two, a man from next door who I have always admired named Ryokusan (6th son) is the guest.  As is usually the case, she defers to him being the host, everything is for his comfort, and this is why she sits lower in the paintings, I think she would feel awkward about the reverse.

Two Pairs

      The past few weeks I have been working on two pairs of paintings, which has been the perfect balance.  I anticipate returning home with six paintings in total, and since two will be mostly finished soon (the two direct studies of the woman working) I am making sure that there is no lull in the action by stretching two large canvases to match the large double portraits in the series I am temporarily calling "The Visit."  Another friend of my subject whom I have known for many years came by recently and I had been waiting to get some good photos of a visit between the two.  While i am making these new canvases, I am working up some drawings for what will be a second diptych, each panel roughly 44 x 52 if my metric conversion is correct.  This is a size that I have been using for a year and it is simply working so I want to continue the linear progression, plus they fit perfectly in the back of my pickup between the wheel wells.  Because I am going to take the canvases apart to roll them up and bring them home before I depart at the end of the summer, I am excited that these beefy stretchers I made will provide ample painting support for years to come.  I think I will have 3 more paintings sessions on each canvas before leaving, leaving them more than 3/4 finished, and I will touch them up and add some minor changes to them once re-stretched in my studio at home.
     I have been working in this garage at night, and although I have had to dispose of some spiders that could walk away hammers, I have had some pleasant company too as you can see in the bottom right hand corner of the collage above.  The K-truck has sides that fold down and it has made a great work table keeping with the Japanese tradition of maximizing my space.  Oil painting is easy to overwork in my opinion, so this seemingly excessive building has always been a way for me to counteract this challenge.