Hello. Yes I felt a bit tired for the studio and after a groin pull yesterday I need to rest. Tomorrow will be a better day for it. I work till 3pm and then in the studio for the night. Lucky me.
I'm prepping some small wood panels and also canvas panels, good busy work between painting. The new work is interesting I feel, the first session ended on a good note. I was thinking the other day that if someone else were to pick up where I left off with these paintings I think they would have a good starting point. There is nothing so definite that they couldn't be one thing or another yet because of the rich earth tones they bring one back to landscape. I love them but.....
When I read criticism of painting, writers analyzing work comparing one thing or artist to another and giving a thumbs up or down it makes me question what and why I'm doing what I'm doing, how I'm doing it and everything else. At first I was horrified but then had a moment of clarity.
I SHOULD be thinking about the process of picture making, making good paintings and not paintings that bore ME or just painting to paint even though paintings do come from painting. Of course I can only make the paintings that I make but I can also think and make them better by letting go, being fearless. Whatever that means in the moment. Maybe the thoughts amount to nothing or if I'm lucky become a title. I like that idea.
What really came to mind when I read this critique of a painter was how I've been so strongly influenced by different American painters of the past century and I feel nervous that I don't justify it, my making it my own.....enough. In my heart I feel I am making it my own and asking the questions during the process and that is all I can do. I can't control how others may see/interpret them. Damn those others. Kidding.
I caught the beginning of The Hours the other night and I didn't like that movie as much as every other human when it came out but I certainly gave it more of a chance this time. There was some amazing acting and even with the annoying prosthetic nose on Kidman I found it quite interesting. The moment when the opening line to Mrs. Dallaway comes to her is incredible. I'd never really thought about that process and I'm sure it's different for every writer but to really begin at the beginning and not go forward till the first line is right, amazing. In a way held like a prisoner till it's figured out but then freed to move on.
Painting can be quite similar in that the first mark is what sets you up for what is to come. Not that things can't get rubbed out and change completely but that first mark is always there influencing what is to come.
To be continued.
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Critics are much more influenced by fashions than they ever admit- part of their talent is to conceal this.
ReplyDeleteMy tendency is simply to ignore them. What matters is surely our- as artists- attachments to our passions, the enjoyment we feel as creators. As lovers, why should we care what the snide sideliners think?