1.5
It's twotwo. Is it time to dance or turn to the mirror and reflect? If you go to the end of my portfolio page you will see I am staring into the mirror.
I have been thinking about the pillars of smoke, all that is left of the Twin Towers. Brooke tells me that this may be the road too travelled but I have to go there anyway. I have written this for my newsletter:
"The marks we make on the air we wander through are not obvious. They are moments stored in the wind. They only appear as memories and those are not always reliable. How are we to judge our lives if we cannot see them? This is the work of artists.
I remember the things that happen around me as visions. In this apparition, reaching fingers appear, seeking life, offering aid, demanding redress. Moments of carnage create black and white responses. There is no middle ground. Sometimes the world resides in my radio and, crouching within that plastic box, narrate paintings. Bursts of flame, pitch of smoke, rending of lives; the brush, moved by the fingers, illustrates them.
12.19
9 days later, editing done and undone, the paintings trundle on. I should be showing you these but words will have to do. This morning one of them was so very bad. Despite the best efforts of a dramatic tonal palette, the piece was clumsy. It was so bad I worried for my children's opinion of them.
Then Erato visited. She admonished me for my own shallow thinking and forgave me my lack of talent. She enlightened me: one brief moment in which she passed knowledge to me; as if with a kiss brushing my lips. Just so. Just like that. The Muse Erato. Huzzah!
I have now embraced my own terrors and given them free rein of the canvas. The fingers of a giant hand pierce black smoke and red flames and reach down to a harbor. Lives are lost, souls cast from the sky. Perhaps they float peacefully now. one can only hope. Let us pray.
12.10
A mermaid lured me into her pool today. I was taken by the glimmer. Water draped over my shoulders then gently pulled me under; I saw the sky in her eyes. Swiming but breathing.
In love. This is the nature of paint. Dichotomy and implausibilites. Such joy.
My endeavors are minor but they are sincere. In the solitude that occupies the space in front of my work, I am diligent. Today, whilst holding my heart, I plodded on. I have two paintings that trespass on my private feelings. I think I am understanding the mystery. Not understanding. This is an intolerable condition. Anything not understood must immediately be explained. Of course, our lack of understanding reflects our lack of credible reasoning. Art is born!
I wend and weave line through areas of color. I draw squares and triangles and circles and then dissolve them. Suddenly there is a finger and so it must be realized. Then there is the outline of a head and it must have a toothy expression. A cornucopia spills at the top of one canvas, a bow tie of red, yellow and blue hovers over the other's top.
Such things, such raw things. White canvas is the primary color and all else serves it.
It is space and it is presence.
I have been liberated from fear. I am free but remain happily in chains.
12.8
Let it all out.
I started not one, but two. Two canvasses 68" x 50", one already stretched and the other thrown against the wall with thumbtacks. Two blaring white canvasses beckoned and cajoaled till I could stand it no longer. They reached inside of me, deep into a roil of fear and angst and from that swirl elicited two jumbles of slashing primary colors heavily indebted to the white grounds on which they lay, spent.
I can't remember feeling so empty. In three hours I emptied myself into the jars of paint on my painting table and into the eight or so brushes I slashed the canvasses with. Only the slightest vestage of sophistication and only the slightest nod to design ethic merged with this tantrum of paint.
All my secrets.
Scared the living s*** out of me to look upon it. Left me at once exhilarated and depressed. The painting was very good; that was exhilarating. I will own them forever; this depresses me at Christmas.
12.7
Toby got on the plane with a smile. I can get on my feet with a grin, goddamnit.
12.3
Sometimes, I actually read the gump I have written. I see I have neglected to tell what happened with my four month Helenistic return to the figure. Five paintings, six drawings, no success. I tried, ladies and gentlemen, I tried. I just can't seem to do it. While working from the figure produces something like serenity, the result is sooo very boring to me. I confess, I can't do it anymore. I would, frankly, rather hold a woman than paint her. Although, after holding her, maybe. A small, indecisive intellect is what I have. I am Richard IV, near defeat on the battlefield, yelling: " a thought, a thought, my kingdom for a thought!"
12.3
It's been months. One gets bored and wanders. I have not been idle, I tell myself. But we all know the truth. I have slumped to silence. Brooding about work. Brooding about color. Brooding about style. If I brood anymore I shall become a hen and hatch eggs.
The grass glistens today. The dew turned crystaline in the dark and now disperses the morning sun cheerily. The sky is cloudless, and is thus energized and beckoning. If I flew I would take flight and see our lives as the sky does.
I have been thinking about perception and depiction. I have been wondering and learning a little bit about the theories of visual, spoken, and written depictions of our perceptions. Dipping only slightly into places like Google, I have found reams of astute thinking. It started with me wondering why ancient cultures agreed more or less on how to draw things but had such different solutions for the words used.
I think it is useful to refelct on our noggins' contents and how they got there. I am still a crude bastard day to day but I am gaining understanding on why I find abstraction more satisfying than figuration. I suppose I have moved from seeing to feeling. This destination is, unfortunately, rife with monologue. Nevertheless, it is a joyful swirl and maybe a gossimer veil to protect me from reality and its nasty expectations.
8.28
FIN DE SIECLE
I am at the end of my rope today. I wander about the studio, a sculpt done, but no painting in me. I scuff about. The colors sit on my palette table, lonely like. I can't summon them for I have no where to take them. The worries rise and fall in me like tides. Today they ebb, and smother the desire to wield a brush.
I bellow at the wall but it summons forth only echos. No sound from Erato. Not a whisper, not a tweet. Murray has finished his beautiful blue painting. Hearing about it makes me green, so jealous of his facility. Today, I am one hundred, at the end of a cylcle.
What brings tomorrow? I rush to Nod, so the sooner to know.
8.20
I pulled out the tapes of the Illyad today, to listen to Hector lambast Paris. Helen had a few choice words for Paris as well. But Homer is unswayed by actions when there is beauty to behold. Homer writes: "Magnificent as a God, Paris answered Hector."
Poor Hector, doomed to die at the feet of mighty Achilles. Soon to be dragged around the ramparts of Troy, his hacked body ruined and useless. Poor Hector, trying to save Troy, while his brother sleeps with the beautiful Helen. Hector, husband and father.
Soon to be joined to dust.
You ask, what the hell has gotten into Dick? I have been thinking about Helen; or rather looking for her. I aim to immerse meself in the figure and want to be lured there and made captive by a siren. Muses may wander the Earth, but no longer by their names. Erato may be Janice, for all I know. Lashed to the mast, I pass the cliffs. I hear the songs but, as yet, do not see their progenitor.
8.17
What reads a quiet word? What sounds does the brush make? Do I care? I think not.
Clatter in the studio as new chisels, though old and found in Maine, do yoemens service on a maple head. Said wood extricated from a graveyard in Southwest Harbor. Lay next to long sleeping bodies, cadavers encased in roots and blanketed with moss. Such peace pulled south to Spring Garden Street. When I saw this log I could see the head in it. I was and am not certain of its final demeanor, but its candor and feel were and are still evident as wood chips litter my toes in sandals.
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