Philosophical Musings on Painting
On Impetus:
The impetus to paint is always an experience - a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, its not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience.
A painting starts with an exuberance. It's good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time - a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the carton character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or "animate" it in the present.
On Perfection (and the myth of the masterpiece):
The quote, "there would be no art in a perfect world;" except that a perfect world is impossible to imagine. Art is an ongoing battle:
a) Knowing what the image is
b) How to paint it
c) What the paint does and colors
There's always going to be something the painting doesn't do, and something wrong with it. You can't correct all of the mistakes without making more. Only ask if it has something of interest and how long that will be sustaining. There will always be a point at which it loses interest. A Matisse is better only in that it does so much more. But the more it does the more things you can find wrong with it. Dryden says ask only that the balance is in favor of what's good. Good or bad meaning only what we require of it, usually in terms that the painting sets up. If it strives for a likeness, or for composition or if you feel the want of something. Or if it just turns you away, it's embarrassing.
A masterpiece begins as a masterpiece - I don't paint masterpieces (obviously). It's not the only art form.
Why try to do something bigger when what I'm doing now has more than enough problems to solve.
On Image Formation:
It is as though there are images floating around in me that are very important extracts of my experience, what has made life worthwhile. I can't quite make them out. They relate to things I remember and the things I see in passing would also seem to embody them. It goes away when I look at details of actual things (or at a photo of the past). It is suggested by it. And yet it is like a real place. So there are all the inherent problems of painting a likeness. Paint is still paint. It comes on strong in traveling and in coming home after a vacation.
On Meanings:
I am repelled by pictures painted around a meaning: "Love", "Peace", "Poverty", "Race". Symbols are alright if left to themselves. Events, even biblical, are okay. I have to be careful that animating my buildings and cars doesn't go too far.
On Permanence:
A principle impetus to paint is to make experiences more lasting, but paintings don't last either, and if you can't remember the experience, a painting won't do much anyway. In a practical sense, it should last as long as the purchaser.
On Art and Religion:
Both, along with most of what we do, project ourselves outward to fill the void of a world without human consciousness, our own consciousness of us by those we know. Religion was for me: striving to see the world as good, beautiful, true and pure, and living that way. Intrinsic values or qualities that make life worthwhile. Supposedly.
On Cartoons and Battles:
I'm at my freest when thinking in terms of a cartoon. Knowing the limitations of a cartoon, I try for a more serious art, a more complex or subtle composition, a more strongly felt quality (Cezanne, Matisse, Hartley, or Hodgkins). But I probably get less than I would if I just relaxed the standards. I don't know. Do I want something that is bright and fun, or some battle fought and lost? An occasional battle momentarily lifts one from a routine, sets a slightly different course, and gains a little ground. Best left for small paintings.
The impetus to paint is always an experience - a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, its not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience.
A painting starts with an exuberance. It's good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time - a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the carton character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or "animate" it in the present.
On Perfection (and the myth of the masterpiece):
The quote, "there would be no art in a perfect world;" except that a perfect world is impossible to imagine. Art is an ongoing battle:
a) Knowing what the image is
b) How to paint it
c) What the paint does and colors
There's always going to be something the painting doesn't do, and something wrong with it. You can't correct all of the mistakes without making more. Only ask if it has something of interest and how long that will be sustaining. There will always be a point at which it loses interest. A Matisse is better only in that it does so much more. But the more it does the more things you can find wrong with it. Dryden says ask only that the balance is in favor of what's good. Good or bad meaning only what we require of it, usually in terms that the painting sets up. If it strives for a likeness, or for composition or if you feel the want of something. Or if it just turns you away, it's embarrassing.
A masterpiece begins as a masterpiece - I don't paint masterpieces (obviously). It's not the only art form.
Why try to do something bigger when what I'm doing now has more than enough problems to solve.
On Image Formation:
It is as though there are images floating around in me that are very important extracts of my experience, what has made life worthwhile. I can't quite make them out. They relate to things I remember and the things I see in passing would also seem to embody them. It goes away when I look at details of actual things (or at a photo of the past). It is suggested by it. And yet it is like a real place. So there are all the inherent problems of painting a likeness. Paint is still paint. It comes on strong in traveling and in coming home after a vacation.
On Meanings:
I am repelled by pictures painted around a meaning: "Love", "Peace", "Poverty", "Race". Symbols are alright if left to themselves. Events, even biblical, are okay. I have to be careful that animating my buildings and cars doesn't go too far.
On Permanence:
A principle impetus to paint is to make experiences more lasting, but paintings don't last either, and if you can't remember the experience, a painting won't do much anyway. In a practical sense, it should last as long as the purchaser.
On Art and Religion:
Both, along with most of what we do, project ourselves outward to fill the void of a world without human consciousness, our own consciousness of us by those we know. Religion was for me: striving to see the world as good, beautiful, true and pure, and living that way. Intrinsic values or qualities that make life worthwhile. Supposedly.
On Cartoons and Battles:
I'm at my freest when thinking in terms of a cartoon. Knowing the limitations of a cartoon, I try for a more serious art, a more complex or subtle composition, a more strongly felt quality (Cezanne, Matisse, Hartley, or Hodgkins). But I probably get less than I would if I just relaxed the standards. I don't know. Do I want something that is bright and fun, or some battle fought and lost? An occasional battle momentarily lifts one from a routine, sets a slightly different course, and gains a little ground. Best left for small paintings.
