July 3, 2021 - Morning before work

The original post follows. After reading over it a couple of times, I see that it is a record of an event and that’s all. I didn’t relate - in a way I’m satisfied with - the struggle, which was mostly internal and completely due to my own incompetence. I do want to leave a record, but not for self-aggrandizement. I think records are important to leave because of the way we are absorbed in our own lives. Hearing about, reading about someone else’s “why” adds depth and value and perhaps understanding - not to artwork necessarily, but to the mind of the one learning. I realize that speaking openly about sub-par oil paintings will not help me be attractive to a gallery or to a buyer. I know this. It’s just that we all have to prioritize, and my priority is to raise my hometown, my home county and the surrounding area out of an “artless” existence. How my standard landscapes will do that I don’t know, but where I come from, art is something left behind at grade school, and I have something to say about that. It will take my entire lifespan and I will not (likely) see much progress. I will most likely die seeing my surroundings just as I saw them in my youth, just as I see them today. That does not excuse me from acting - albeit in my mostly inconsequential way. We must not violate our own conscience, even if the end result seems futile, for the conscience is aware of that which our senses are not. It knows the course of water underground.

Here are the facts: I can’t draw, I don’t know color, I am indecisive, I don’t do well under pressure, and I make excuses. I show paintings that could use a lot of work, that are middle-of-the-road at best. I know that. I can see my own work and I constantly compare it to better work - the best, actually, so I’m constantly crushed. I’m a slow learner. That said, if I had a “greatest hits” folder to dump on Instagram, I would. My vanity knows no bounds. Even as I type this out, I imagine nice people complimenting me for one thing or another - and that is just about enough to delete the whole thing. But I recall my priority: leave an honest account. The following post is about where an idea came from. I tried to make it short.

A walkthrough of a painting is sometimes interesting, sometimes not, so I will not go into paints, tools, surface, et cetera. I think it is worth noting how an idea comes about, however, because ideas are really what the business of painting is about to me. I love beauty, I love a great surface of a painting, and I love something from nothing, but none of this happens without a primal urge to use our bodies to get out the wriggling, buzzing, restless idea. From our souls, our spirits, to our hands and voices, we need to receive and give in this way. (If you believe that we are merely cosmic burps, I can’t relate. There is simply no basis for joy, sacrifice, selflessness, or anything noble.)

So, about the idea.

I started this painting thinking that it would be a simpler work to do while wobbling on another effort. It was just an interesting shadow on the land. Light and shadow. Enough. My reference photos were made in the winter, so it was bare branches for miles. “Great!” I thought. “I can paint it simply as masses and concentrate on shapes (like I’m supposed to anyway…).” So I begin. Immediately I stumble because I did not work out the design. I thought my panel proportions were close enough, but the placement of the main break in the trees was … ugly.

I go with it. Light and shadow, light and shadow. Focus.

The scene is early evening. Why does my painting look like it is later? Hmmm…. increase contrast. Color and value contrast. Hmmm…. nope. Shapes? Horizon? Hmm.… wobble, wobble, wobble…

And so it went on and on for a long time. I thought that because I had light and shadow I had enough. I could not concentrate because my reference was winter, but I wanted some foliage. I knew that if I kept going with the light and shadow idea I would not be happy. But for some reason I didn’t listen. I just wanted a simple picture of light on trees, but it just wasn't happening in this effort.

Click here for progression video

To cut the story short, I got frustrated enough to just paint over it. I would have to submit one less image to the show I was hoping to get into (Oil Painters of America 2021 Eastern Regional). I had ended up spending too much time spinning my wheels on a hurried, unconsidered idea and effort.

I was on the carport doing my destruction (I don’t have good lighting, so I had taken the painting outside in a last ditch effort to get somewhere) and I was walking back into the house. I turn back to see it one more time - to make sure it is sufficiently destroyed - and something new spoke in silence - a dog looking at you not knowing why you yelled and stomped at it.

This is about where ideas come from, remember?

I looked at this battered surface now defaced - all my own doing. I thought of all the painting had been through, of all it was made of, the lack of story, and now, abandonment. I was giving up because I wasn’t good enough, and that fact defeated me.

Upon turning to see it and from who knows where, my mind’s eye saw a shadow on the land where once there was light and “somber” where “sunny” once stood. I saw an ancient drama. I saw judgement - my own about the painting, yes - and another. I saw - as if from a distance - a crowd, one crowned in mockery, condemnation, and the desperate straining for release.

Two magnets came together.

I’ll leave it there. In short, when I saw myself witnessing the Crucifixion from a distance - hearing the jeering, hearing the scorn, hearing the dying giving into nothingness, hearing a confession and a king’s promise, everything changed. From scene to story, but not my story, once bright now dark, and that’s how I proceeded. It is a story for the world. A raspy promise that might be mistaken for a breeze or the flutter of bird’s wings. I know that very few people will read this picture, but I have put it down and left it as I found it at last. If I have told it well, others will hear a silence, perhaps echos and exchanges they can’t quite make out, then the sound of distant birds lifting from leafy shadow into the dying light and rising with the quiet tide that is dusk. They will see in the too-close value/color relationships of the painted shadow the strained hearing of a commotion in the distance, they will see the nondescript bird spots as souls and vows older than all living, the warmth of the clouds a seemingly contradictory idea of a dying breath and a new promise of life.

If you have made it this far, thank you very much. Here is a small strip from another painting called

“So Much Depends On”

It is minimalist and somewhat poorly done, as the simpler the subject, the more expert the execution needs to be, and I am no expert. It’s a good idea that needs craftsmanship and experience. I only have persistence.

Cats in the night, dog during the day, passing where the other had been, never meeting. Hydrangea. Snow.

Confession

So, about the idea.

This is about where ideas come from, remember?