Sep/092
…like the tide
blew (feather), ink and tempera on paper, 12x 17.5, 2009
Last week I spent a morning in the Study Room at the Saint Louis Art Museum soaking up a few of the accomplishments of Zha Shibiao, Dai Xi, and Lu Yanshao. Lu’s album of landscapes was particularly significant to me, and provided a serendipitous escape from the frustrations that I have been facing in my own ink paintings. The paintings in the album alternate between monochromatic and colored works. And while there is an element of consistency, each piece manages to shift mood and focus in an unexpected way. By the time I had worked my way through the painting of Dai Xi and the calligraphy of Zha Shibiao I was convinced that the energy and precision of the painted line was the critical ingredient missing from my own work. As much as I love the flowing washes, they are air with no stone and flesh with no bone. So I decided to get back to that line, and to clarity.
The previous weekend I had spent some time in Forest Park with my daughter. While sketching by the water, I saw a feather that had gotten caught in a spider web among the reeds. It became a natural weather-vane, pointing out the wind’s direction but never following along. Although I made a short video of the event, I prefer the natural stillness of the painting. In describing the feather’s arrested motion over time, the video describes the presence of the otherwise invisible web. The still image locks the feather into the center of its gaze where scrutiny of the object precedes explanation of the scene. I transported the feather (by way of imagination) to the South Carolina marsh that I love so much, where the pulse of the tide takes the place of the shifting wind– known best by its presence or absence, not by the activity of transition.
Aug/091
fix it, make it
S. Magdalena Sophia Barat (detail)
detail of puncture after reinforcement
It has been a busy couple of weeks since my last post, with school starting for the whole family. In the midst of it all I have managed to start and complete several new projects. The first is the restoration of a painting that was punctured and scraped. So far I have patched the hole and re-set the original material salvaged from the edges of the damaged area. The next step will be to fill the voids left by the puncture, and then on to the fun part– matching and applying the new colors. This is accomplished by the use of powdered pigments with Damar resin as a vehicle. Because the puncture occurred in a relatively clear area of the painting, it will be a challenge to make the repair disappear.
a selection from the new set of ink landscapes
I opened a new container of ink only to find that the “velvet black” was actually a deep indigo with a red undertone. It was a pleasant surprise, and fell right into line with the night landscapes that I am simultaneously painting with oils (but are not yet presentable enough to post). The painting above is shown in its first state. I continue to experiment with the tongue-and-groove backing which leaves a “wooden floor” image and embossing on the paper. Originally this was accomplished with the studio floor, but later I made a section of “flooring” specifically for this use.
core structure of the bench before cladding
The other new project is this bench, which will be clad with 5/16″ tongue-and-groove oak flooring as its final surface. I designed the piece t0 be built out of surplus/scrap wood and finished with reclaimed lumber. Hardwood floors have edged into every aspect of my work. I appreciate the floor’s relation to my landscape paintings where looking down becomes a means of understanding what is above us. Staring at the floor is an overt gesture of withdrawal, but what I am cultivating is introspective rather than anti-social behavior. If a viewer can make that distinction then the reclusive act is transformed into a particular form of sharing. In the mean time the pursuit of the spirit by way of the flesh, the intangible by way of the tangible, and the transcendent by way of the practical remain central to my interests.
Aug/090
The great outdoors, indoors
photograph of sea shell "stone" with ink painting as context
When I am working in the studio I like to skip around between the many projects that are underway, and I always enjoy starting new ones. In between paintings last week I started working on some possible ways of resolving two bodies of work with which I have been unsatisfied. One is a collection of worm-eaten shells similar to those featured in a previous post. The other is a set of landscape paintings executed in ink on rice paper. The shells were objects without a home, and the paintings were homes without an object. These works in progress (I’ve posted two of them, above) are direct descendants of the photographs that I took in South Carolina this summer, with the significant change being the stage-like shift to a painted backdrop. I’ve been reworking the photographs digitally, and we will just have to wait to see where they go.
May/090
Fluency
This spring I spent two months in Italy, and the experience gave me a new appreciation for fluency. Fluency allows one to make specific statements or ask particular questions, to select from a range of options, to take social and historical precedent into consideration while meeting the demands of the moment. It allows for the explicit and the implicit, the broadest aspect of words, intonation, inflection, gesture, and posture. Practical use suddenly finds opportunity for poetic expression, and things left unsaid become as meaningful as those which are spoken. Most of this was lost to me, because I’m nowhere close to being fluent in Italian. Hence the new appreciation.
Although my artistic practice has become quite inclusive, I center myself in the act of painting. This is where I feel fluent. Just as with other languages, fluency in painting comes from an accumulated wealth of experience and application. That is, one experiences and understands the communication of others, and by way of that experience one is able to engage with and build upon the existing language. Fluency is not static.
Near the end of my visit I found my way into the Cenacolo di Sant’Apollonia, where I saw an extraordinary painting by Neri di Bicci, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints. At first glance, the presentation of the subject is so familiar that it is easily dismissed. I passed the painting on my way into the main hall of the museum without giving it much thought or scrutiny. As I was preparing to leave the museum, though, I glanced at the painting once more and it stopped me in my tracks. What was this? A mother reaching awkwardly to arrest a child’s arm, to retrieve the groping hand already well on its way inside her garment? Most of us are familiar with images of the Christ child in repose, at play, or in full suckle, but this presents itself as something both strange and special. It is an eloquent expression of desire, of love, and of discomfort. The painting succeeds in creating a sense of humanity which is tangible and convincing. And that sort of eloquence is not born of painting. It emerges from a keen recognition of events in the world and the imagination of how lesser events might otherwise be transformed in the retelling. This, too, is a form of fluency.