the bird of war
Paint-stained nails and fingertips on cut, wrinkling hands sun-soaked and blister-palmed. Punching blacks and caressing flake white to articulate and bend and she rises off the canvas like a bird of war; majestic and hungry. The terrible can be beautiful.
There's something menacing here; like the angel that says, "fear not."
We'll dance again tonight. Paint and smoke and whiskey and these aching hands, bare-knuckled and chipped and ink-stained. She'll become. She'll become.
scene
Today I saw an image; a scene from a studio I know well in Brooklyn. The artist is a poet, warrior, friend. His paintings have a physical presence, like someone standing behind you in a room at that moment before you fully realize it. They are often dark, rough, imposing things with battled surfaces and gristly edges and yet, as of late, I catch a tenderness in them from time to time; a product of fatherhood no doubt, yet also the light of the soul.
NY is calling my name and has been all summer. It's been too much of one kind of travel at the expense of the other. Duties here, social and familial; things I don't mind, but still a part of me is always away.
This thing of going to a space and contending with surface and material and image, one wonders how one finds oneself in such a Way. To listen to a visual thing, this is a strange and wonderful discipline indeed. Tired hands and stained skin and then the attempt to wind down and catch up on the sleep that seems to always be two steps ahead of me, eluding me from day to day.
Whiskey stones and laundry are the remnants of this day; another day that did not stop, and finds me exhausted and unable to give in to sleep.
Today I saw a scene from Brooklyn. A promise of another level, making me bring up my game to the next level, and so it goes and so it goes. A picture of a studio wall that made me want to paint. That's honor. It's a glorious thing really. So I raise my glass tonight to Brooklyn and all the lights on tonight in rooms with paint on the floors and at least a wall, and canvas and books and music and longing and sweat.
NY is calling my name and has been all summer. It's been too much of one kind of travel at the expense of the other. Duties here, social and familial; things I don't mind, but still a part of me is always away.
This thing of going to a space and contending with surface and material and image, one wonders how one finds oneself in such a Way. To listen to a visual thing, this is a strange and wonderful discipline indeed. Tired hands and stained skin and then the attempt to wind down and catch up on the sleep that seems to always be two steps ahead of me, eluding me from day to day.
Whiskey stones and laundry are the remnants of this day; another day that did not stop, and finds me exhausted and unable to give in to sleep.
Today I saw a scene from Brooklyn. A promise of another level, making me bring up my game to the next level, and so it goes and so it goes. A picture of a studio wall that made me want to paint. That's honor. It's a glorious thing really. So I raise my glass tonight to Brooklyn and all the lights on tonight in rooms with paint on the floors and at least a wall, and canvas and books and music and longing and sweat.
after
The opening went very well. Those in attendance were engaged, and the comments I encountered were thoughtful and positive. We stayed up late with one of the artists, his wife and the curator drinking wine into the night.
fastened down to oblivion, exhibition view
I can't speak positively enough about Ann Stoddard's curation of the show. She brought together six wildly-different abstract artists and created not only a first class exhibition, but a teaching exhibition as well. The show stays up for most the semester and I hope students will visit (and revisit) it. It's a show that warrants multiple viewings.
Fortunately, there will be opportunity for multiple viewings. The Spartanburg Art Museum will be picking up the show in January. I'm very excited to be in the good creative company that I am with this show, and profoundly humbled to see the work hung in a museum.
an awful rowing toward god, exhibition view
One of the most interesting exchanges of the evening was with the College's president. After spending time with "an awful rowing.." he commented that it reminded him of the author's description of his encounter with the afterlife in Proof of Heaven, the story of a neurosurgeon who has a transcendent experience during a coma despite the fact that he intellectually rejected all such experiences prior to then. I haven't read the book, but our conversation made me want to. I found it interesting that he made such a connection.
I heard the word powerful a lot last night in reference to my work. This was tremendously gratifying; both that it stood the test of physical inspection and that it often seemed that people were having a similar experience looking at and being with the work as I had painting it. I feel I'm on my way.
letting go
I drove over to the gallery tonight, foolishly thinking it would be empty. Of course the director and her drones were busy with all the last-minute preparations; the space is alive and bright. I have to say, the show looks really good. I found the eclectic collection a bit jarring until I actually saw it hung, and I'm impressed with the curator's vision.
So now the funny part.
The large painting is hung upside down. I must have wired it this way in my exhaustion last week. The day job has been brutal for some time now and in my preparations I must have gotten disoriented. What's interesting is that I didn't notice at first. I have to say, I think I like it better the way it is hanging.
I've always believed one acts or one is acted upon. Neither is, inherently, a "better" condition. There are benefits to each. In this case, I received one of those gentle wacks to the head from the universe letting me know that I need to let go for awhile and just allow myself to be taken away. That's a really positive thing at this particular moment of time.
I think one has to keep a certain irreverence towards one's work. It's easy to take yourself too seriously and something like this could have caused me crazy stress on the eve before a show. But it honestly didn't. I sort of feel that everything is right and how it needs to be. It made me laugh and relaxed me, and now I go into a highly-charged situation (an opening) in a much lighter place.
So now the funny part.
The large painting is hung upside down. I must have wired it this way in my exhaustion last week. The day job has been brutal for some time now and in my preparations I must have gotten disoriented. What's interesting is that I didn't notice at first. I have to say, I think I like it better the way it is hanging.
I've always believed one acts or one is acted upon. Neither is, inherently, a "better" condition. There are benefits to each. In this case, I received one of those gentle wacks to the head from the universe letting me know that I need to let go for awhile and just allow myself to be taken away. That's a really positive thing at this particular moment of time.
I think one has to keep a certain irreverence towards one's work. It's easy to take yourself too seriously and something like this could have caused me crazy stress on the eve before a show. But it honestly didn't. I sort of feel that everything is right and how it needs to be. It made me laugh and relaxed me, and now I go into a highly-charged situation (an opening) in a much lighter place.
breath into water
Hot thick air and silent Main St. outside the door; ashes and droplets of Mars black stain and seep into the 100-year-old wood, like sweat, like breath into water. You're with me here. You always have been. I found the personal and through it discovered the universal. So these paintings are your poems and stories and struggles and hopes. They belong to us all, and perhaps least to me once the paint dries.
I don't remember the struggles aside from they happened is all. This time is fleeting and immediate and I am only passing through it like the cities and towns I've passed through my whole life. I once told a lover that leaving is simply what I do; no less love, only the constant longing to wander beyond and through and on and on and on. That's in the paintings now. That's in the blackness and shadow. The paint on my shoes keeps my feet on the ground, constant and steadfast. I can put that longing someplace physical and go back home.
I moved into this space and started a blog about the journey from obscurity. I always said if I found the answers I would share them for free, but now I don't know. My willingness hasn't changed, it's just that I don't think anyone would listen. If I told you it was easy, you would dismiss it. If I told you it involved pain and personal sacrifice, you'd ask if there were another way. There's not; either way, that is, another way.
I wanted to row out to the vastness and the unknown where it's dark and desolate and sky meets sea and somehow find something beyond, and then somehow -inexplicably, find my way back. Only then could I give it away. Maybe I'm close now, but whether I'm returning or continuing to row out doesn't seem to matter much any more.
There's a stillness to the studio when I'm about to begin a painting. Sensual and slow and steeped in loss of self. Things become enhanced, that's the only way to describe it. So much of it is labor; the building and the priming and the base coats over and over. Divine labor, heroic at times, but labor nonetheless. Then that first mark. Paint on surface and choice and negation and choice and option and over and over and it is forged and carved out of the nothingness.
dreams may come
I received notification of my first museum show, which will open in January of 2014. As I have yet to sign the contract, I will hold back the museum's name, but it is a regional art museum in SC. This came at one of those moments when the world seemed black and despair was taking hold of me in a profound way. The road is long. It's not for the faint at heart and even the strong face down the demons of doubt and hopelessness from time to time.
The art world is not a meritocracy. You don't get points for talent or even effort, and my trips to NYC have shown me that bullshit hangs on walls with red dots next it just as often (seemingly more so) than the kick-ass work that belongs there. There are countless painters out there that are amazing who will never see "success" on any grand scale. It gets demoralizing if one lets it.
For my part, I have stayed my course. I've worked alone and in obscurity for a very long time. At one point or another every friend or family member in my life has politely discouraged me from continuing along this path; for my own good, of course. I appreciate it. We don't like to see people we love in pain, struggling toward a seemingly unattainable goal. But I have always believed in myself absolutely. Even in my lowest, I have never given up on my work. I've always found a way.
On the day my daughters were born I made a promise to myself. It was one of those silent oaths we take in this life that is strictly between ourselves and our Source; that I would stay the course and prove to them by example that they can achieve their dreams. They don't come easy. They may even come at great cost, but they can be reached if they supremely believe in themselves and never let anyone (even those closest to them) discourage them. So when I walk into that museum next year with my daughters by my side, I will feel that I have fulfilled a sacred oath and that I have done something as a father that is meaningful and lasting.
As I've told my painter friends over many beers and tears, I have only ever sought greatness. Longevity, not fame, is what is important to me. I want to be a great painter, even if my audience is yet unborn. I value that more than all glossy magazine covers and art fair headlining that may or may never come.
This is a moment.
And tonight I will go back into the studio, roll up my sleeves, and do the work.
The art world is not a meritocracy. You don't get points for talent or even effort, and my trips to NYC have shown me that bullshit hangs on walls with red dots next it just as often (seemingly more so) than the kick-ass work that belongs there. There are countless painters out there that are amazing who will never see "success" on any grand scale. It gets demoralizing if one lets it.
For my part, I have stayed my course. I've worked alone and in obscurity for a very long time. At one point or another every friend or family member in my life has politely discouraged me from continuing along this path; for my own good, of course. I appreciate it. We don't like to see people we love in pain, struggling toward a seemingly unattainable goal. But I have always believed in myself absolutely. Even in my lowest, I have never given up on my work. I've always found a way.
On the day my daughters were born I made a promise to myself. It was one of those silent oaths we take in this life that is strictly between ourselves and our Source; that I would stay the course and prove to them by example that they can achieve their dreams. They don't come easy. They may even come at great cost, but they can be reached if they supremely believe in themselves and never let anyone (even those closest to them) discourage them. So when I walk into that museum next year with my daughters by my side, I will feel that I have fulfilled a sacred oath and that I have done something as a father that is meaningful and lasting.
As I've told my painter friends over many beers and tears, I have only ever sought greatness. Longevity, not fame, is what is important to me. I want to be a great painter, even if my audience is yet unborn. I value that more than all glossy magazine covers and art fair headlining that may or may never come.
This is a moment.
And tonight I will go back into the studio, roll up my sleeves, and do the work.
imitations of drowning
untitled, ink on arches paper, 22" x 30", august 2013, Rico
Black gesso. Black fingers, arms, and washing out the big brush under the Main St. streetlamp hunched spigot. At the door and I remembered the arches paper, ink, time, turnaround make one, make two, make three.
And drawing, mark-making, doesn't have to be obviously related, or good, or for anyone. It's a way of thinking about things; form, materials, flow, movement.
untitled, ink on arches paper, 22" x 30", august 2013, Rico
Fluidity. Suspension. Falling? Imitations of drowning.
There are new thoughts, but I'm working through the large canvas on the wall, already titled in my mind...some come like that. The day washes away into work and hands and sweat of labor. Painting is wrestling angels, either way there's loss but then again those moments; those moments when one really sees.
This meandering stream-of-consciousness thought flow ends now. A beer and Breaking Bad and to bed; and I'm very mortal once more.
Exhibition announcement
Kimono, oil on canvas, 48" x 60", Rico '13
My work will be included in a group exhibition at Presbyterian College's Elizabeth Stone Harper Gallery this Fall, entitled Abstract. The show opens September 12th and runs through November 29th. There will be an opening reception on the 12th. The show has not been promoted to any real extent; partly due to the fact that the College cut the Director's position to third time. It is a terrific gallery space, and though I do not yet know with whom I will be sharing the walls I'm excited to be showing in my "home town."
If you've seen my work in Greenville, please make the short trip down. If you attended ArtFields, you saw my work in the HUB space, and another large work will be exhibited in this show along with 3 works the size of the one above.
I'll be switching out the current piece at Art & Light Gallery for this one, and I'm excited to have Kimono seen publicly. It's a pivotal piece in this body of work; an important one for potential collectors.
If you're reading this blog and live within a few hours, I hope to see you next month.
Arjuna
The path of doubt and relentless self-questioning is the road to light. Perfection is an illusion perpetuated by those who profit from having the masses chase unattainable desires. Desire is the path to anger and pain. Capitalism must create desire in order to feed itself.
I believe ambition can be healthy. I differentiate goals from desire because more often the journey to one's goal is far more satisfying than the attainment of one's desires. That is why millionaires try to become billionaires; having is never as satisfying as getting there.
The day job is in a state of acute crisis. Finding grace and resolve in the midst of tumultuous freak-out and widely-held frustration and pressure is, to my mind, the mark of a man. (see Kipling's "If"). I devote my energies to many things, often at once, and this crisis will pass because I will resolve it. I have come to understand that no problem is unsolvable; there is a spectrum of potential solutions to any situation that runs from the completely undesirable to the absolutely desirable, and finding the point on that line is simply what I get paid to do. I have always worked to learn before working to earn. Every job I've ever had (and I've had quite a few) has held a lesson within its experience. This one has taught me to deny the impossible. I've become fearless in the face of unraveling chaos, and in the end this has made me a better artist, a better father, and a better man.
Arjuna has been a difficult painting. Not because the process was any different; it wasn't. It has been difficult because I had to destroy a good painting to get to it. That moment of destruction was fraught with anxiety and doubt, but equally a sense of absolute liberation from expectation and comfort. I divested myself from self-assurance and anticipation. Painting is best when it's blind; I love uncertainty.
A friend of mine painted a painting called The Way of Hardship. It's a terrific and powerful painting, one might even say sublime, and I've sat in front of it many times. I've come to think that it is a visual representation of the artist's Way, and I mean specifically the painter. We tend to seek out resistance more than other artists (except maybe writers, but that's another post). The path of most resistance can be destructive. But it can also be a path to enlightenment, if only fleeting, which most enlightenment is anyway.
The work right now is about doubt and struggle and choosing paths from divergent options. This theme seems to be recurring throughout the past 20 months or so. I'm embroiled in a struggle to find something, though that "thing" is elusive.
I believe ambition can be healthy. I differentiate goals from desire because more often the journey to one's goal is far more satisfying than the attainment of one's desires. That is why millionaires try to become billionaires; having is never as satisfying as getting there.
The day job is in a state of acute crisis. Finding grace and resolve in the midst of tumultuous freak-out and widely-held frustration and pressure is, to my mind, the mark of a man. (see Kipling's "If"). I devote my energies to many things, often at once, and this crisis will pass because I will resolve it. I have come to understand that no problem is unsolvable; there is a spectrum of potential solutions to any situation that runs from the completely undesirable to the absolutely desirable, and finding the point on that line is simply what I get paid to do. I have always worked to learn before working to earn. Every job I've ever had (and I've had quite a few) has held a lesson within its experience. This one has taught me to deny the impossible. I've become fearless in the face of unraveling chaos, and in the end this has made me a better artist, a better father, and a better man.
Arjuna has been a difficult painting. Not because the process was any different; it wasn't. It has been difficult because I had to destroy a good painting to get to it. That moment of destruction was fraught with anxiety and doubt, but equally a sense of absolute liberation from expectation and comfort. I divested myself from self-assurance and anticipation. Painting is best when it's blind; I love uncertainty.
A friend of mine painted a painting called The Way of Hardship. It's a terrific and powerful painting, one might even say sublime, and I've sat in front of it many times. I've come to think that it is a visual representation of the artist's Way, and I mean specifically the painter. We tend to seek out resistance more than other artists (except maybe writers, but that's another post). The path of most resistance can be destructive. But it can also be a path to enlightenment, if only fleeting, which most enlightenment is anyway.
The work right now is about doubt and struggle and choosing paths from divergent options. This theme seems to be recurring throughout the past 20 months or so. I'm embroiled in a struggle to find something, though that "thing" is elusive.
returns
Slow night but courageous; painting into the safe, destroying to build, allowing the paint to lead the way without judgement...or perhaps against it. Bright, big moon cloaked in deep prussian blue black clouds of night like the sky reflecting on the ocean far away from the shore. It is the creator's prerogative to obliterate and flood and burn away; even the beautiful.
The full studio is a dangerous place. Work must struggle against the tyranny of aesthetic and its reassurances. Each new picture is an autonomous entity, rightfully so; heir to its own being and presence.
Unexpected breeze blows through the studio, carrying Miles and echoing the horns against the brick and wood and floating along with cigar smoke into the rafters and visual memory for another night when the hot wet thick air returns. August is coming.
Sometimes the artist must struggle in order to forget what s/he knows; about life, about love, and art. Forget and play. Forget and make marks against the comfortable and the known. Forging out into the icy sea to feel one's course through the walls of frozen oblivion-makers, like skyscrapers in the city.
Smoke and sky. Slow burn of dried leaf curls and rises as do thoughts subdued by action, repetition and waiting. The paint bleeds and blends and pools and now it dries a mile away in the darkness; white and breathing and vulnerable and naked.
Charcoal-stained fingers from page after page of exploring line. Line, form, weight, gesture; fundamentals of the practice that serve to ground and to humble and to connect eye to hand, circumventing thought and mind.
It's good to be back.
The full studio is a dangerous place. Work must struggle against the tyranny of aesthetic and its reassurances. Each new picture is an autonomous entity, rightfully so; heir to its own being and presence.
Unexpected breeze blows through the studio, carrying Miles and echoing the horns against the brick and wood and floating along with cigar smoke into the rafters and visual memory for another night when the hot wet thick air returns. August is coming.
Sometimes the artist must struggle in order to forget what s/he knows; about life, about love, and art. Forget and play. Forget and make marks against the comfortable and the known. Forging out into the icy sea to feel one's course through the walls of frozen oblivion-makers, like skyscrapers in the city.
Smoke and sky. Slow burn of dried leaf curls and rises as do thoughts subdued by action, repetition and waiting. The paint bleeds and blends and pools and now it dries a mile away in the darkness; white and breathing and vulnerable and naked.
Charcoal-stained fingers from page after page of exploring line. Line, form, weight, gesture; fundamentals of the practice that serve to ground and to humble and to connect eye to hand, circumventing thought and mind.
It's good to be back.
Junebug
Thick Southern air seeps into the skin and soul. Summertime is candela wrapped cigars and studio doors wide open to the heavy night. I am a summer painter. I love the slow heat. Undulating clouds of thunderstorms and distant tropical storms fill me with renewal and passion and longing. Twelve-year-old Hukushu to round out the night and still the mind, unwind, and leave the rigors of painting and grappling with form and materials to another session.
Two paintings in various states of beginning. A show in September to clear the studio of reassurances that come with lots of paintings surrounding me. There comes a point where they all have to face the wall; one has to recapture autonomy in each new effort. I have stayed within the parameters I set last year and the work benefits each time, but I cannot become self-referencial.
My process is the slow grind. Work and re-work, wait, dry, wait and re-work and wait. Weeks and months; using accidents but then honing their power into something directed and labored which eventually looks spontaneous. I am dedicated to the path of simplicity. Simplicity takes discipline and patience and honesty in one's practice.
There's a growing body of work in the studio. It is becoming intensely focused and deftly executed and at times I feel that I am watching it unfold and come into being as a passive observer. I am patient and watchful and have no objective in mind save being in the moment of each work as I participate in the dance of painting.
A second glass and the night is still and quiet. No trains now. No distractions of the mundane. Tomorrow I will visit the studio and see what I have to work with. I'll push ever onward.
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