from beginning - to end ...
‘kill the painter before he kills the painting’
said an old friend and lover of impressionism ...
lover and louvre ...
[wonder how anselm and cy are being received this weekend - best wishes as always] - saturday mornings’ warm rain and traffic [cautiously careless] reminded me of paris again ...acquaintances huddled under a few umbrellas with coffee and cigarettes - like rafts on the river, or schnabel’s ‘circumnavigating in a sea of sh__’ - won’t go there - promised myself no politics today ...
so hard to see anything without being referential. when i think i’m finished; ...what if - then i would have to - but that would change everything - and that wasn’t the point - but it could also - and that would cause so much disparity between all the good stuff while doing it and the anxiety of ‘if’ - but that could be applicable - [i could stop here if i wanted to be an art critic] - skill and eloquence can make it work - what if it doesn’t - no loss - ‘experience is what we get when we aren’t getting our own way’ - like hell - i could fail - not an option - people won’t like it - now here comes that fuked up four letter ‘f’ word again: fear -
so what really matters ...
is it finished - what is ‘it’ ? - does it work as a painting - is it a stepping stone toward something else - can it be helpful or enjoyable to someone else - does it clarify anything, at least to myself ...
doesn’t matter - at this point, barring any revelations, my instincts should be enough.
i started the piece a few weeks ago shortly after being notified by a local college to be part of a panel discussion about my career for present art enrollees. honored and humbled [guess they want to show off a few trophy fish from the pond]. now i’m thinking it might be a good example to students regarding the certainty of arts in our culture; its opportunities and rewards ...
from the cave mans’ hand to kiefer’s self portrait ...
we’re all trying to represent some kind of reality - if only for a moment.
i still see things - maybe defining overtly would minimize or prejudice someone else's experience.
peace and cruciform
pieces of crucifix
relics
praise and emulation
reverence
remnants and fragments
transept and nave
alien skin, figures, and profiles
what happened in secrets
too scarred to divulge
akin
intervention
what doesn’t look like us
or do what we do
our culture is:
what is built to sustain ...
motives, habits and heart
thought in motion
seen from above
battlefields and bedrooms
boardrooms and bedlam
entrails, deserts
washing away
heroic depictions
idiots’ wind
embowelled beauty
idea springs
to rivers, lakes, and drought
earth, wind, water, fire ...
