Size Matters

I couldn't sleep last night. I started a new painting yesterday, and I love the composition. It's an elongated, twisted portrait that reminds me of Brancusi's Bird in Space (pictured to the left). The problem is that I composed the work for a tall, narrow stretcher that I happened to have leftover from an old painting idea that I ended up not pursuing -- always good to reuse old stretchers for new and improved ideas. Except that I measured it wrong, so the new composition I planned was actually 4 inches longer than the stretcher! I thought I could just crop the image and use the stretcher I had, so I continued on my merry way, thinking it would all work out just fine. But after painting all day yesterday, that nagging voice in my head would just not shut up. "It's too short." "It'll never be as good as the original version." "You should stop painting this." "Don't sacrifice a better composition in the name of speed and convenience." MAN!!

I was really happy with how painting actually went yesterday, so it became even more tortuous to consider abandoning it now that paint was actually on the canvas. I went to bed wondering if I was just being too picky, if it was worth all the extra work it will take to re-do it, if when I re-paint it, it will be as good as what I did yesterday. I just couldn't come to terms with the fact that a few inches was making such an enormous difference in how the work was perceived!

But with fresh eyes this morning, there is really no doubt. The longer version is better. It will bug me every time I look at the painting if I don't change it now. SO frustrating. But lesson learned. As soon as I saw that the stretcher was a different size than my composition, I should have stopped cold. Considering I custom-make my stretchers down to the 16th of an inch, how could I not see that chopping four inches off my composition might not be the best idea? Oh well. This morning I've made the new stretcher. Now I just have to muster up the courage to strip the other painting off its support and toss it into the trash.

Too Much

I have too much to say. Way too much. So much that I have found myself unable to say anything at all. I've written countless unfinished blog entries, all of them totally inadequate ramblings. I have so many ideas lately, inspired by so many disparate things, I can't find the time to sort through them and articulate what it all means for me and my work. As the ideas pile up, I don't want to post my latest finding without catching up on the older ones first, but I can't seem to find the time to catch up, so the ideas pile up and pile up. I no longer know where to begin. The longer I leave it, the more the ideas shift and move, overlapping and looping around each other. They feed off each other, growing bigger and more complicated, becoming so thoroughly intertwined that I can no longer find a way to disentangle them into neat, compartmentalized postings.

I know the ideas are working their way through my paintings. I can see the influence in my latest compositions. But I continue to experience an unshakable anxiety that if I do not find the time to sort through, synthesize and articulate my responses, the ideas will start to lose their potency and will begin to suffocate within the tangled mess of incomplete arguments, fragmented thoughts and forgotten connections.

I've had strep throat this week, so my mind is fuzzy and my body aches. I'm exhausted with illness but wired from boredom, and the combination is pushing me perilously to the edge. More often than not (and especially at times like this when I'm sick), I find myself frustrated by the gap I experience between the possibilities I see in my mind and my ability to execute them in a sufficient time such that the products of my efforts don't feel like old news when they are finally complete. The speed of my body can't seem to keep up with the speed of my mind. I recently read a book about the California artist Robert Irwin (a goldmine of inspiration that I have been working through in my recent series of unpublished and unresolved blogs) in which he laments our culture's emphasis on performance:

"We are past-minded, in the sense that all of our systems of measure are developed and in a sense dependent upon a kind of physical resolution. We tag our renaissances at the highest level of performance, where it's really clear to me that once the question is raised, the performance is somewhat inevitable, almost just a mopping-up operation, merely a matter of time. " (from Lawrence Weschler's "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees", page 90.)

I so get that! In the last couple of months, I feel myself caught in a deluge of questions that my work just can't keep up with. I know I must accept temporary resolutions, whether in order to complete a painting, post a blog entry, or write an artist statement. But be forewarned: these works are not definitive statements, they are merely a series of still inadequate working hypotheses.

It makes me return to my favorite quote that I posted on August 1, 2010 by Arnold Glimcher about how artworks are but a series of clues to the art that ultimately resides in the mind of the artist. But even that assumes that the art is fully formed in the artist's mind, and I'm not convinced that this is always so. I certainly love the idea that the art is already there, somewhere inside me, and that all I need to do is sort through the mess, excavate through the comfortable and the obvious, and free it from deep within. In fact, in moments of inspiration, like when I was reading Weschler's book on Irwin, the ideas strike me not as foreign entities, entering my consciousness from somewhere unknown and external, but much more like liberated P.O.W.s, at long last released into my thought processes from that dark, secluded place inside my mind that is otherwise inaccessible to my available modes of expression. I love that art can be the source of such liberation.

I could go on and on. There's so much more to say. I feel like I should end with some definitive conclusion to all this. But alas, I have none.

Portraits of a Sensation

photograph, Amanda Clyne ©

I am not a storyteller. My curiosity in the world lies not in reconstructing a nebulous past or imagining a fantastical future, but in experiencing the pregnant intensity of a living moment. When I am drawn to something, whether a person, building, object or image, I place the world on pause to probe the source of my empathic fascination. I delve deeper into the experience, not by inventing accompanying narratives or researching encyclopedic details, but by envisioning ways to embody the moment and prolong the sensation. Art can fulfill this desire in me, either through the creation of my own work or through my experience of the work of others.

Growing up, I found that the art that spoke most profoundly to my sensibility was in the modern works of the 20th century, particularly those of abstraction. While I appreciated the skill and complexity of the great works of the old masters, their dramatic form of storytelling did not move me in the way that a de Kooning, Twombly or Agnes Martin work did. The more narrative I perceived, the less I felt engaged with it. I didn't even like reading. Stories just didn't do much for me.

So imagine my surprise when a few years ago my painting began to move away from abstraction and toward representation, of the human body no less! But my paintings are not at all about storytelling or even description. Is what I paint really representation? Is the use of the figure determinative of whether a work is representational?

I am beginning to find an answer in Daniel Smith’s erudite introduction to Deleuze’s book “Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation”. Without taking on the grand debate between Modernism and Postmodernism, I find myself drawn to Deleuze’s distinction between “figuration” and “the Figure”, as his concept of the Figure seems to offer a third category of imagery that seeks to challenge the conditions of representation while lying somewhere between representation and abstraction. Smith explains that for Deleuze, “figuration” is a form that is intended to represent a particular object to the viewer (ie. representational), whereas “the Figure” is a form intended to elicit a sensation from the viewer through more direct means, such as in the work of Francis Bacon. In my own work, the insidious melancholy and pathos I evoke is far from the violent rage in Bacon’s work, but I find I share with Bacon, as Smith writes, “the problem he shares with Cézanne: How to extract the Figure from its figurative, narrative, and illustrational links? How to “paint the sensation”…?”

For my last solo show, my exhibition “Illusive” was sub-titled “Portraits of an Image”, a kind of statement of purpose to clarify that I did not consider the paintings to be representational portraits of a woman. Perhaps I need to expand that idea, and conceive of my next paintings as not just portraits of an image, but as portraits of a sensation.

Rethinking the Blog

The studio of Francis Bacon

It has been a shamefully long time since my last posting. I must explain my absence.

I began this blog with the intention of sharing the struggles and machinations of my studio practice as a way to capture the energy, empathy and exchange of the shared studio environment that I miss and love. I have worked alone in my studio for almost two years now, and while the solitude keeps me focused and productive, I am always rejuvenated and reassured by conversations I have with my fellow artists, whether we’re discussing the trajectory of our ideas, exchanging new techniques and methods, or simply offering each other support and encouragement in the face of inevitable bouts of self-doubt and frustration.

But as the marketing efforts ramped up for my first post-graduation solo show last September, I became self-conscious that this collection of unfinished thoughts and uncensored queries could undermine the reception of my work. As I looked at my friends’ blogs, I realized that they were primarily used either as a marketing vehicle to show off recent artworks, exhibition announcements and media coverage, or as a stage for a carefully crafted online persona. Mine was, and is, neither. I have wondered if it should be.

But now, after months of silence, I realize that my original vision for this blog must stand. Being an artist is so much more than participating in the productive cycle of artwork, exhibitions and sales. That is the part that makes it a job, but it is not what makes you an artist. For me, being an artist is the whole adventure of wrestling with ideas and seeking mastery over materials, of confronting failures and reveling in breakthroughs, of working, waiting and watching for magical happenings to occur in both mind and matter, and above all, of sharing these obsessions with others who go through the same.

So today I am renewing my mission for this blog -- to divulge my take on the inner-workings of this crazy, difficult, amazing life, come what may.

Where The Art Is

Here is an excerpt from a recent interview I found on YouTube with Arnold Glimcher, the former president of the Pace Gallery in New York, discussing the work of Louise Nevelson:

"What interests me is concepts, is the cognitive process of art. And that process is perception. How is the artist’s perception unique? I don’t think that when you see the most extravagant, extraordinary exhibition of Louise Nevelson’s work, you’re really seeing the art. These are maps or charts or clues to the process that makes the art. The art is Nevelson’s perception of the world. The art is happening in Nevelson’s head. These [the sculptures] are the maps to that art. And I believe it’s true of any artist."

I need to write

My New Toy

WATERCOLOR!!!!

Untitled, watercolor on paper, Amanda Clyne

For Show

With my solo exhibition at p|m Gallery this fall fast approaching, and with numerous new works now completed in the studio, I know I should be feeling pretty confident that I'm ready. And I do - but an idea that I had about a year ago and that has been nagging me in the back of my mind, suddenly seems ripe for execution. Do I have time to make it happen in the next few months? I think so. I hope so.

This desire for a new approach to my show has come after painting for months and months, each painting representing an incremental step forward (and the occasional step backward) in developing my ideas. But now to envision my exhibition merely as a careful selection of individual paintings from a large body of work is beginning to feel, on the one hand, inadequate to convey months of exploration, and on the other hand, a lost opportunity to use the gallery space as a specific, contained viewing experience.

Grappling with this issue with respect to my own work has led me to begin to conceptualize the gallery exhibition as a show - a show similar in nature to the stage. Installation artists approach exhibition spaces like this naturally, as a critical element of their practice. But painters who work within the parameters of the rectangular canvas don't often directly address the relationship between their works, unless they choose to add elements of installation to the exhibition (*see the interview with artist Wangechi Mutu that I have posted below). Painting shows can sometimes feel like a selection of products displayed in a high-end retail store. This is the brand we are carrying this month, pick the color and size that suits you best. But the gallery space conceived as a theatre opens up possibilities for creating a more direct relationship between individual paintings, as well as possibilities for a more expansive connection between the works and the viewers. It's an interesting opportunity that I don't want to ignore. Can I pull it off in the next three months? We'll see...


*The following video is an interview by the AGO's David Moos and artist Wangechi Mutu. The whole video is worth watching (she's an amazing artist), but her comments on the gallery space are particularly interesting to me for this discussion. It begins at minute 6:28, in the last two minutes of the interview.

Determining Greatness

A few recent quotes on how we determine the value of art:

"Perhaps the importance that we must attach to the achievement of an artist or a group of artists may properly be measured by the answer to the following question: Have they so wrought that it will be possible henceforth, for those who follow, ever again to act as if they had not existed?" (Walter Sickert, 1910)

"There is a widespread belief, not only among the general public but even among many art scholars, that artistic success can be produced by persuasive critics, dealers, or curators. In the short run, there is little question that prominent critics and dealers can gain considerable attention for an artist's work. It is equally clear, however, that unless this attention is eventually transformed into influence on other artists, it cannot gain that artist an important place in art history in the long run." (David Galenson, Old Masters and Young Geniuses, 2006, p. 3)

And some thoughts on the matter by the ever-quotable Chuck Close: 

The Opposite of Intellect

Some people think I'm crazy to have this blog - all those thoughts, ideas, even a few (dare I say it) feelings about art, painting and being an artist. It may all come back to haunt me one day. It may be haunting me now. How much should we say about our art? Is it better to be the elusive but uber-hip Andy Warhol, the evasive but brilliant Chuck Close or the diaristic, soul-baring Tracey Emin? Is it all contrived anyway? Is it just persona-building and market-savvy calculations?

I've been thinking about this in the context of writing (and forever re-writing) my artist statement. How much does the viewer really need to read about the work in order to experience it fully? How much should I, as the artist, attempt to guide the viewer into the experience of the work? The intellectual aspects of the work can be explained, but the non-intellectual elements are not so easily defined. I've been trying to think of a word that captures those other aspects of the experience of art, the non-intellectual, non-rational side. "Emotional" is one way of describing it, but that can suggest an element of melodrama or intensity that isn't necessarily appropriate or adequate. "Spiritual" is sometimes used, but in today's culture, it smacks of new age philosophy and Oprah. "Sensual" conveys a contrast to the intellectual. I like to think of the term more broadly, as those responses that are "of the senses" and not just by way of touch. But even the dictionary on my computer tells me that this use of the word is naively optimistic, if not wholly incorrect:

"The words sensual and sensuous are frequently used interchangeably to mean ‘gratifying the senses,’ esp. in a sexual sense. Strictly speaking, this goes against a traditional distinction, by which sensuous is a more neutral term, meaning ‘relating to the senses rather than the intellect’ [...]. In fact, the word sensuous is thought to have been invented by John Milton (1641) in a deliberate attempt to avoid the sexual overtones of sensual. In practice the connotations are such that it is difficult to use sensuous in Milton's sense. While traditionalists struggle to maintain a distinction, the evidence suggests that the neutral use of sensuous is rare in modern English. If a neutral use is intended, it is advisable to use alternative wording."

But what would that alternative wording be? And if there is no adequate word to describe it, how are we, as artists, expected to explain it with respect to our own work? And how can our attempts to describe our intentions be conveyed to the viewer without the risk of being dictatorial, limiting, or disruptive?

I like to think that there is a lot more to my work than expressions of intellectual curiosities and opinions. But I'm not convinced I need to talk about it. Susan Stewart (in her collection of essays "The Open Studio") writes, "...no artwork can be completed without reception." My job as an artist is not to create an experience for the viewer that mimics my own, or worse, proscribe to the viewer the ideal or "correct" response to a work. The intellectual aspects of a work can be described (which may or may not add to the viewer's experience), but all the rest must surely be entrusted to the viewers to determine for themselves.