If you are interested and have a moment, take a gander. Sketchbook 2017. The twelve images are toward the end of the filmstrip.
As ever, stay hungry and curious.
N. A. Jones |
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Forgive my drop in levels of execution. I went back and photographed the last run of sketches again. Instead of the French flag running in the background, the clarity of black and white is solid. When I realized that the second run of shots was done under hot an cold lighting, I knew I had to go after a fourth pass to correct the problem. The temperature is cold outside, but the light is fairly even away from the shade of the oak tree.
If you are interested and have a moment, take a gander. Sketchbook 2017. The twelve images are toward the end of the filmstrip. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I added twelve more to the row under Sketchbook 2017. The new images are located at the very end. Friend asked me to post. I had anticipated finishing out the sketchbook in another week then posting, but he said others are interested in progress thus far.
Meanwhile the garden pots are watered and the clouds say to wait for rain. As ever, stay hungry and curious. It is after one in the morning and I keep starting and stopping. I do not know how I want to begin this post. One thing I do know is that I am extremely excited. Friend and I have been bantering about art. I told him about my experiences cross the board about anything art. I forget I have more skills than I let on. Despite being a girl about town that way, one aspect of the art world has got me pinned down. The whole brouhaha is over underground art. I learned a few days ago that underground art is also born from the illegal. I am not talking about staging a sit in at the local government center and filming it. I have been quaintly obsessed with copyright. Reading one of Claudine Hellmuth's books on studio practices I got curious about collage and copyright. I have been in the right all these years, but what I want to pursue is all in the wrong. I have curtained many a project because of it. I do not want to court being sued by any means. Still the crime is in binding my passion and intellect for the long moments with paste, paper, and scissors.
Underground art, I learned, can be created with anything. Even with the use of copyrighted imagery. A few moments my mind just broke open. My subconscious confirmed that I was being given permission to work with anything given or sourced. That deck of tarot I started working over two years ago need not fear anything. I will use the paper ephemera I have and make the deck without worry. It will be for personal use. When I move into publication phase then out comes the camera and pen to do the labor I love. As for the dam breaking, I will take a chance on creating series based on several fascinations: first, Masonry, second, anti-masonry, third, Catholicism, fourth, nudes, and fifth is image working with a book idea currently called The Courtesan's Courtesan. I feel like I am taking a chance on risking propriety and proper approaches. I only know a staid hand based on the influences on political art for the last ten years. I remember cartoon character being done of the prophet Muhammad. The uproar from the Middle East lasted over a year. I do not want to end in a situation of being given death threats and having to go into hiding for months. Still, I have got ideas and irritations in the gullet that I perceive to be like St. Paul's thorns in his sides. He was told those thorns keep hum close to God and that is why they were never removed. When the pursuit begins I am not sure. Though brainstorming need begin soon to strike while the fever persists. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I am tired. These last three days have taken a toll on my limbs and caused a restless mind. Sleep is in order and before the lingering uncompleted tasks consume my soma, I am getting the little things out of the way before I feel the weight of my unresolved fascinations take advantage of me. Staying on line through early Saturday morning is not where I want to be in a few hours. Forgive me; I digress from where I wanted to be with this post - underground art.
What I had to say before the weekend was that my list, in my mind, is bogus. The list comprises the standards of what underground art is presumed to be. For now I plan on cluing into the scene through media outlets and artist websites. I must also say that this endeavor is not for the sake of becoming an authority, but out of a need to resolve my excitement and clarify my presumptions. Curiosity rules the day and I think there are art forms out there that do not fit any of the headings I listed. Consider the tarot conversation. I never would have thought that art clued into the underground and underworld in such a fundamental way. As far as the other items in my art bucket list, I am contemplating the art brut and folk art presence in the United States as underground. I heard suggested today that manga need be on the list as well. I agree. In the middle of writing I realize I am getting hungry to list and codify qualifications to flesh out what is underground art. If I do not I will be swamped in a sea of images and occasions without the ability to explain what I see and why it matters. That has got to come first. Ah, yes, another addition to the 2017 Task List. I do not want to wait too long to venture out on the net, not to forget casually inquiring to a passerby about local art scenes whether popular or unknown. I will make my approach to the issue slow for now. Still, even with my drooping eyelids I am psyched and determined. As ever, stay hungry and curious. To date,
this is where my mind runs when thinking about the concept of an underground art scene: Graffiti Street Art Mail Art Pornography Trading Cards Public Art Natural Sculptured Forms Earth Art for the simple person Street Dance Political Art Rap Music Country and folk music out of the hills and mountains Ceremonial sand painting ‘zines Cartoons This seems a sensible list where anyone can wrap their heads around basic materials and methods to witness a presented product. Personally speaking I am still wrapped up in the raw. I want to smell the linseed oil and hands ripping play bill advertisement off the inner walls in the West tube. I want something that I have to guess at and lower my trained instincts to meet the artist on their level of understanding and execution. I secretly want to know what it is like to stand in line for an hour and passionately get distracted by the buskers and the “to do” they are creating at the entry to the building. Yes, I have strange dreams and this year I want to pursue these visions and inclinations to see if they are real. If underground art goes farther than what I have written, I am game for pursuit - even if it is only gossip. Nevertheless, after a turn or two by someone’s wheel, the work might manifest somewhere we all can see, hoot, and be inspired. As ever, stay hungry and curious. You figure that once a week for an hour might educate your brain into being interested more than surface appearances. I used to think that and found myself terribly wrong. A good analogy might fall this way; being interested might get you to the altar, but it takes a persistent level of dedication and sacrifice of person and personal time to find yourself in front of the sanctuary forty some years later with great-grandchildren at yours and your truly’s sides.
I figured I would pick up the sketchbook once a week. “That would do the trick.” I thought that I would finally feel like I am acting progressively when it comes to my career instead of being mired in a technique and style that make me who I am. Right now I have a handful of approaches that satisfy my craving for paper, paste, and scissors. As for the public I am getting excellent responses and active encouragement to keep going in the same vein. Still there is a voice that quietly suggests for me to return to experimentation. Shortly after the voice goes quiet and I rant and complain. I cry on the inside. I feel the end of the world coming on slowly creeping up my shins and starting to well in the points of my hips. I whine for a moment before the feeling of release happens. Feeling free, feeling fine could be playing in the background as I turn on my right side in the bed contemplating the accomplishments of the day. The true crux of that voice is that it knows I am not settled in my soul with what I have been doing. In the second pass bridging an older series, the challenge of it all seems to have disappeared. I feel I have failed and no one knows the dark cloud barring my sight even in the afternoon sun. So, I have made an impression in the metal chairs on the back porch for the past two weeks. This week it has been difficult to set aside time not to overlook that I temporarily lost interest after Easter storms passed over. (God is a rain God. I am almost positive). In the fullness of spirit in the drawings, I do not want to let go of the hours spent at the side of garden boxes and planters, heels on haunches, and hands in the dirt. I know my understanding of the little nursed greens is apparent in the drawings. It is a quality that could never have come through without study and attentiveness. So be it wise my time today under the Red Oak in the back yard. I finished stacking and tying up branches. Piles of acorns I mused as the Avenue of the Americas and the Avenue of the Indigenous were gathered and placed in brown bags the city requests us to use for recycling all things natural. The remaining short branches I stacked with the wood still seasoning for another year. This afternoon was an act of being completely in the moment. What was learned is that I am not approaching nature from the advantage of a city slickster sliding the landscape with cement shoes. I know the plants better now; better than last year and hellafied better than the last rain. I got my present in discovery yesterday. The plants I drew in the cups had increased three fold. I don’t know when mother will put them in the ground, but I want to get in a second pass with pen and paper before anything else happens. Immersion means I know my study not just by appearances, books, or pretty colors. Striking dimensional is where I am at. The visage is only the beginning of where the piece sits. The symbolism will start to soak deep and rich like a finely glazed and sealed oil painting. I did not expect this of myself. There is something to be said for private study, exploration, and experimentation that will never be understood until you are immersed in it. Underground Art I made a new friend last night. We chatted away an hour or more about underground art and what seems to fascinate the public and keep us artists going. I have been tempted to let the fascination rest, but he encouraged me to keep going with my casual research. I took a hint. Current plans are to approach underground art with a careful eye to research and report as the occasion arises. Well, at least until I can get to the computer to write and edit. Still, I digress. This is what I told him. In the scene are those who illustrate tarot cards. I was having a casual conversation one day while out and about in the city with a few people. I spoke of trying my own hands at building a deck. In response I was told others do as well. Where I found a handful of websites depicting the making of tarot cards by a team of artists and writers, the street approach is to base their cards either on themselves or on their friends. Some take pictures of themselves nude in different positions and paste it onto a standard deck of cards. Some take pictures of people nude in different positions and also paste the images on to a standard deck like Rider-Waite. The subsequent reading focuses on what type of sex the querent will have with the reader or what person they will have sex with in that sex cartel or brothel. If I remember correctly, friend said he may have heard something like that. Friend’s offering to the discussion was this: in some urban towns there is a quarter where you may find a good looking woman seated behind a table, underneath a dim light on a corner. She has a deck of tarot cards. Instead of reading for a question you have, she’ll read you for the day you will die. She will pull a card from the deck and tell you the number of the card is significant. The card is laid and demons are summoned. Two people may show up to clarify the reading. The day you are to die is confirmed and somewhere in the emotional milieu you are given an invitation to a play. Your invitation is on the same day you are to die. The number of your tarot card is more than likely your seat number in the auditorium. I thought that was one of the savviest forms of advertising. Friend says that the play goes on late at night. It sounded like a midnight theatre situation. I know from experience the ambience and drama are something to commit to memory. What is left for me is to stay open to discussions of art on different levels, basically into realms beyond the museum and gallery. This could be a good thing. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I have a friend in the street who asked me if I knew what the fin de siècle was in the Dallas/ Fort Worth Metroplex, let alone in my own town. I told him I was clueless. He minded me that some days I sit squarely on the edge of discovery myself so do not be afraid to guess. He visited last night to tell me not to lose hope and to remember that I am not alone. As he paused I remembered an art exhibition advertised on the news almost ten years ago. I remember the camera panning the gallery as I stood in the living room in front of the television. My jaw sagged at the low quality of work compared to the high quality host and time slot. As the newscaster interview the artist I became more and more disillusioned. As for the work, all of the pieces were thickly painted assemblages that had small white bubbles jutting out the side of the canvas. I could not make out the objects embedded in the paint, but I did recognize garish color combinations. In the last few moments of the news story the artist revealed that all the pieces were about passing gas. My jaw finally dropped open. The newscaster closed the story with the dates and times of the show.
I finally woke from the memory when friend spoke quietly out of the silence. He began to tell me that what is selling these days is self-portraits. I saw no reason to take an objection, so I continued to listen. What is selling is coming from untrained artists. They are taking pencil and ink to page to draw nude self-portraits. Still what is the problem? One of my favorite artists, Egon Schiele, made a life with that approach. So what is the problem? Friend said the bodies in the pictures are copied from other artist’s works. The sketch artists in question are superimposing their face over top a chosen body found in pornography. That body is usually contorted in a position of committing an auto-erotic sex act. The sketch artists also have a penchant for drawing human bodies in the motions of having sex. Again these images are copied from static pieces, not models, and focus on the genitals. Friend tells me that these works are selling out and making some people famous. Suddenly he stopped speaking. I also paused because uncomfortable laughter turned to jealous incredulity. Just a week ago someone asked my opinion about the television advertised art schools. I remember those back when I was in my tween years. While the number flashes on the screen, call and they will send you a test. I called, it arrived; I completed it, but never sent it back in. I heard sometimes people pass those tests and get asked to work professionally. Others are offered a chance to enroll in a correspondence course for several years. Of course going to that school is a paid gig. What I said last week to someone was skip it. Have fun with your sketchbook and/or camera for a while. If you really want the work get the skills from an education and independent work. From this reply I fell into a conversation with friend calling me a “creative”. I balked. I bit. I spit. I do the work and I got the education. I am an artist. I am not a lightweight dabbler in the arts. I am committed beyond student loans, local guilds, and expensive supplies still wrapped in cellophane. “Creative” seems a con game of a term where everything is a donation of work or school project. Everything is everything and everybody raves about what you do. Artists do not please everybody, nor are they out to. Artists work through the suffering of anonymity and the obligations of acclaim. Being called a “creative” does not sit well with me at all. Meanwhile, the studio is quiet in the afternoon. I am back to quilting and a little peace ensues for a little bit of time. Also, strategy and focus is all consuming. I started work on a Master Task List for the year. I have not yet brainstormed. What I have is a conglomeration of lists over months. The best advice was not to try to complete everything this year. It will drive me batty no doubt. Companion to the quilting is writing. I receive so much encouragement since last year that I am going to put more effort at the helm. Besides that, all the grammar books came in from amazon.com. Because of that I am looking at improving my approach for long term goals. Can you believe that I got reamed out and told to start editing my backlog of writing for publication? That was one of the best feelings I have had this year. I may need something to keep me on track for that. Reminders? Sticky Notes? Deadlines? Somethin’. As ever, stay hungry and curious. What is good art?
The time is almost four in the morning. As I lay in bed opening and closing my eyes to adjust to the darkness, friend spoke gently asking if I was awake. Since then we talked about little other than the last post. He tells me not to explain anything. The concept and fact hits with a punch, as it should. I need to move on to answer other questions. Out of encouragement he posed to write about what is good art for a few days. I felt the writer’s block from late evening yesterday slip out of joint, but I was left with an open space and nothing to consider. My mind has formed little around the question, except to let an immediate response resonate. Good art does not rest its reputation on a flash of an emotion. Titillation, when used, should be subsequent to a theme. Arousing the sexual intellect must not be the only aim of a work. Thinking into the Renaissance mystery schools, I am convinced allegory must play higher in art than sport, decoration, or sating corporal hungers. As a result, good art raises the viewer and artist to a higher level of understanding the human condition. The spiritual brain is more at play than the reptilian and its penchant to deal with appetites and safety. Good art leaves an impression on the soul by giving relevance and clarity to personal life through classic interpretations of life passages. This way artist and viewer eventually find inclusion of their life, concepts, and ethics I the greater body of human history. Good art is a preservation of civilization by recording rituals, concepts, and practices. This type of work requires the artist to be a bit of a conservator and preservationist with every piece. We know then the artist takes themselves seriously and deserves as much consideration in response to their queries to galleries and play in competitions. Good art does not always have to reflect a high degree of labor. There is that which demonstrates a flash of brilliance, but I doubt masters in the visual arts rest their laurels on epiphanies. Good art comes after wrestling the angel. Good art comes with discipline. Good art comes with arguments into the wee hours of the morning, leaving you restless. Good art is not a task for the weak hearted. It is a reward of the dedicated. As ever, stay hungry and curious. Here and there I discover my drive falls with repeated acts of derision. To rescue my soul, I often reflect on the fact that I am bent, hell bent, on manifesting from pure mind. Frequently that wellspring is not always my own. Friend says right now it is obvious that I reside in that space God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit reside. Today he pointed a finger with his words that I am a Christian and there is no way I can argue against it being revealed in my work. There was a time between studies of Beowulf and Amiens Cathedral that I would not have argued. I would have acquiesced and explained I have been on a personal journey that reveled in textbooks and assignments. For his accusation to be fact, there would reflect a simple connection between active thought and immersion learning. In other words, the effects of study will fade with time as well as my voice and erupting imagery. On being Christian, I came to argue, meant posturing and acting a role. For a time being Christian and an artist had nothing to do with each other. I have another compartment that suits the job of fixing my identities into one drive; namely my fascination with the ancient and tribal. Every core notion from those two disciplines infests each fixing stitch and overshadows every planning sketch. With these two art historical classifications, I am so deep in method and realization that maybe; just maybe I do not see what friend sees. I also do not know why I have not asked him for a detailed explanation of his conclusion. I sit here and accept, but quietly I need it to be proven to me. I used to dance on the proverbial heath and bow to death just the same. In the shadows of a darkened room bearing under the middle of an August sun in Texas, I cleaved to books on Native American trade blankets and the essence of Neolithic pottery for Goddess worshippers. For over two decades I found that design, shape, and function were more than compelling. My interests became fueled obsessions akin to what drove Gauguin into the South Seas. These times were nowhere near a reflection of Christ. I sat awash in legends, fables, and folktales some days to a degree likened to Joseph Campbell’s expanse of history and mind. I still wait the day to purchase Mircea Eliade tomes on shamanism and magic. How can my work be so Christian when my fascinations rest in pre-history and pre-literacy? Still, I see friend’s comment as apropos when I settle into talk of the sacred and its many forms. Maybe here is where my footing is solid with him. We both come from different perspectives but see the same thing with different words. In whim and play I presumed friend was grouping me with some of the cheese paintings of the world. They rest in solid graphic design, but reveal themselves to be a vision of staid platitudes. Nor do I see myself kin with the weighted subjects that came out of the oil brushes of Goya or Zurbaran. Plainly speaking, I do not see it. Maybe my works are filled with the suggestion or essence the liturgy of the word. Those years in mass had a significant effect on me. So much so I cannot argue that my mind set rests at the base of the altar in the sanctuary. “Art is the point at which growth of the mind reveals itself” is a mantra I have spoke for decades. I learned and internalized through books, conversation, and experience. There is no doubt that synthesis and revelation would come out of my mouth and hand eventually. Arguing that my personal pursuits have not affected other parts of my life is futile. Forward on, there is no need to couch terms, deny participation, or simply hide. Friend’s observation no longer scares me. It is a blinding revelation and slowly freeing. Not to forget that he is not the only person who spoke of the change in my work. I have been keeping my mouth shut to listen and bide time for internal reasoning. Strange how the control point over my work shifts every season and with every series away from me. Maybe I am not working for myself anymore. Higher goals and selfless reason are seizing my hands. For now the sacred seeps like water into resistant earth. I thought I was coming to a resting point in work; turns out I passed through another gateway. As ever, stay hungry and curious. Odds and Endshttp://www.e-flux.com/journal/12/61332/what-is-contemporary-art-issue-two/ http://www.stuckism.com/ The Contemplative OrdersI It is the post cookie hours of the evening and my mind is more aware than my body. Friend is awake and land blasting me to write, so I am. I thought I would wrap up loose ends from last nights probing cause to awareness. Turns out friend has more important things for me to ponder and deliver. I am trying not to take his question as criticism. I am trying not to take his concern as teasing. I final rest in a professional response and plan to later probe his intellect in the shadows of midnight. Somehow, after dark, the two of us actively listen to each other. The street noise is not there. We've both let go of the little and big battles of the day. Lastly, everyone is asleep - supposedly, anyway.
So tonight he asks me why I do not paint sexual images. Where are my nude models and racy concepts? Sex sells and you have made a handful of pennies in the past eight years. If I was like some of the others, my homage to pedophilia would be in the dark web along with that secret back account. Why are you working on plants? Why are you sketching symbols? What is the deal with the abstract anything on this site? They are nice to look at, but not compelling. Why is your art not pornography? I remember in graduate school that I was not dating and kept fairly well to myself. The only plan on my mind was to graduate and get work, not to get married, get pregnant, and drop out. I never played the ne'er -do-well, but I remember being a woman with desire and cravings like any other my age. In the aftermath of graduation, I thought all the frustration and inexperience of that time went into the work. No doubt drawings of genitals and titling works like "Pink Priapus" had to be the culmination of a 28 day cycle and hormonal rage. At least I thought it that way after a conversation with a friend. I let her ideals override personal ethics for years. Her concept had some relevance, but it to easily describes me as a letch. For friend's understanding, I must say that I had the confrontation with sex and art quietly in my mind. Then the matters of encaustic and collage needed something more clever than a device or self-portrait. Sex is 10% physical and 90% mental. Then it was a matter of finding my "voice erotique" through imagery. I was more comfortable then, especially when entering in the Dallas Erotic Art Show for a couple of years. My intellect refused blatant suggestion and nudity. I was rooted in the belief that I need not pander to my audience. They deserve to be respected more than that. Still, that was then. Between several moves, a handful of day jobs, and the ever evolving economy, my life changed externally as well as internally. My heart dropped rhythm from a shattered ego to welling at the bottom of the pit with no inspiration. The past thirteen years have been as much about repair and discovery as well as health and welfare. As of 2004 sex in/as art has had no place or room at my table. Ethics and reputation sit in the newly dug well as does a beginning file of images to construct a self-portrait. One thing to remember is that I am not confused about my understanding of the human body. I also take into account that I am not a figurative painter. My drive and history puts me squarely in the way of abstraction and the contemporary tribe. I dwell and thrive at the end of my and others effects. Being conscious and active on that principle delivers me into the arms of environmentalism. I work hard and with a penchant for frugality. To me, the figurative and sexual, not to forget the computer driven, all reek of Jack Daniels, a three o'clock lunch, and a fist full of dollar bills. It is an expensive and costly route from where I sit and not a concept or lifestyle I choose to promote in my work. My clever days in the erotic may not be completely gone, but there must be an appropriate way to work in that vein so it is well received. Even though my hand and choices reflect a Christian philosophy these days, I have to acknowledge my humanity in that I still wrestle with former concerns and explorations on paper and in writing. What I crave is a revelation like the Vitruvian Man. I am settling and exploring self with these new intentions and moral tools. Putting my actions and living into perspective sometimes means I let old matters go through process and seek a better path no matter how narrow or rocky. Conscious trial has had me convicted as to what is in my mind since I started in on the sketchbook again. No doubt cleaning mental house 101 through the end of the month will have a large impact on new work. I am looking forward to it. As ever, stay hungry and curious. I broke my own cardinal law and left the house on Sabbath. In my defense, I have no reason to ignore a day trip and lunch when I do not have to drive or pay. Mother took me out today and the reasons why had to leave the comfort of bed and pillow occurred late in the day between the pages of a book. Before leaving this morning, I mused that I was going out in to the world with a cohort in jovial, but tired spirits. On this surprise journey, I figured we would meet the world on its own terms and mingle with the rest of humanity in wide open spaces. Little did I realize that when we left the house we were to walk God’s bounty in every stocked aisle, confirmed stop, and planned purchase.
I took my sketchbook, a tired, but open eye, and mother’s mind for a GPS. In the still moments, I looked for artistic moments and finally let go of the pressure to produce to lone stand in the breeze. My mind was shot from a long night turned the first lights of morning. Trying to garner personal peace and a platitude in the middle of Sear’s was impossible. Later, when we arrived at the Indian grocer I had let go of structure and let myself float. What bided me through was the produce section. Without being able to recognize the names or uses for the vegetables and herbs, I could easily find a discerning eye for potential in drawing. Passing the jack fruit and the unshelled green peas I got calm. Suddenly the forms jumped out from their bins and I did not care whether or not I would cook the tubers or green platitudes after drawing them. I just needed them to hold a place in my consciousness until I could form some conclusion about venturing into tastes and seasoning. I just needed that vine to be anonymous and vague but ever present and colorful under direct lighting. Drawing might ensue tonight. Right now, the only relevant bit of today is the Jack fruit and rice vermicelli. I can feed myself what I want to eat. I can feed myself what my stomach craved for out of the grocer. I know I’ll be back - for the people and the food. Cooking from another culture is intellect building through trial, especially when bridging to mastery. My stomach is screaming for mung bean noodle vermicelli. Tomorrow cannot come soon enough. What I know remaining tonight comes from the contemporary drawing book I started reading. As for devouring information, I read two small chapters in the appendices and now sit halfway through the first chapter. I am desperate. I am hungry to learn. Everything being timely, I am driven more than usual to finish and apply the theory with the lessons. Over dinner I found in the back chapters that keeping a sketchbook is extremely important and more or less expected of an artist. It is one of the better decisions to make in the building and the sustaining of a career. The scary part of that was with maintaining it 365 days a year. I balked. Yet, I am still here and still drawing and making notations. I thought for years that keep my journals was a mistake. It was stupid. It was vanity. From this textbook I started reading, keeping journals is one of the smartest things for an artist to do. Another daunting point was working every drawing to completion. Friend criticized, but I was more than positive it needed to be done. After reading through the end of the sketchbook chapter, I feel I can let up and augment drawings with descriptions and pasted clippings. There is more than one way to work through intuition and emotional insight. So, I will definitely be mining and connecting my skills in meditation, visualization, dreaming, and shamanism with rendering and fleshing out the mark to translate the written into the visual. I am hesitant to break open my dream journal. It has been a while, I am afraid of what I will read. Still, it is only a matter of facing self. This week will be a journey to a different kind of self-portrait. Tired. As ever, stay hungry and curious. The latest is in. I just finished posting this week's sketches located here. The current installment is at the end of the past two weeks. It begins with a color developed sketch. Right now I am a little sleepy, a whole bunch hungry, and increasingly thirsty. I worked in the yard today before taking time to draw. What is left is a wood pile to separate out and tie. I also have several patches of seeded acorns to pull. Their growth is spindly and haunting. Worth drawing indeed. Keeping mom at bay so she does not pick them before I can sketch is a chore. Hopefully her patience has not worn thin with me a yard work, so she will wait. One good thing is she's been saving her used mailing envelopes for me, as I asked. I did not think she would pick up so quickly. Support and love comes in different kindnesses. She believes in me when I am tired and forgetful. Even when we are in a completely different state she asks about my old working methods and buys the tool I need. It is just a small heavy aluminum pot. Still, I forgot and had put my methods and madness of graduate school to partial rest. She asked me to go back to it and became "Johnny on the Spot" helping me to resurrect so called bygone intuition. I am grateful more than I can explain.
As ever, stay hungry and curious. All innocence aside, as well as all accolades and laurels from study. Let’s also toss out all rationality and any kudos from being cool as a result of affiliations and carousing. Let’s forget the museums and being trained to see. Let’s let go of familial associations, summer stock, and extra-curricular reading. Let’s pan and forget the days of waiting in line to see independent films at the only theatre that it could happen in the county. I stood there looking out the kitchen window watching the white paper Chinese lanterns sway back and forth in the wind. I had just finished an hour in the garden surmising a youthful pepper plant in pencils from graphite to green. Friend said, “You know you do not want to hear this.” “Try me,” I said, “and before you curse, I am not posting any more drawings until Friday”. “Not fair,” he said. “Go ahead, tell me what you were going to say.” “You’re a classicist.” “Go to fucking hell.” After friend’s teases and explanation, I had to give in. Just before he opened up, I spoke of everything in the house and yard looking like a painting. He told me about mother saying being in the garden is good for me. She concluded that she will have her time as well to rest in the lush and I will be babushka tied almond skinned woman with both hands in the dirt. On those days she’ll sit quietly as I paint her in the afternoon sun and dappled shade of the Red Oak. Hell, I knew it before friend spoke a single word. The first thought to mind was Gustave Klimt coming out of the farm house and walking into the garden. He was dressed in a linen night gown and braced past the sunflowers and ivy in the front yard. The photograph is etched in my mind as well as the painting of the sunflowers. Today, tradition found me before I could wail “foul”. That struggle in college and graduate school to find my voice in images was painful. (If I find my pain in writing from then, I will post it.) The sound to be singular and tantamount to the fin de siècle was deafening. It took me a while. One day I found my edge in collage and assemblage and never looked back. I am in my second week of two worked sketches a day. I am finally getting comfortable finding my old rhythm from being in the garden years ago. I owe a credit to young and old in the neighborhood who are confident in my skills. If it were not for their consistent encouragement my eyes never would have changed and focused to understand my environment so well. So now I am daydreaming about small canvases and gouache on paper. Possibilities seem endless in this little corner of trial and I do not want to leave this realization. For some reason I know that working this way will get me through the darkest of nights and blazing hot Texas afternoons. I thought joining the Sunday Afternoon Painters Club would not come until after seventy years on the planet. I will no doubt petition for entry despite the lack of experience. Right now I am daydreaming about selling paintings at the state fair. Something of the human condition is welling in my pen and washing my pages. Discovery and execution must be next. As ever, stay hungry and curious. Foundations 10
Journal Entry: March 29, 1995 Journal Entry: April 3, 1995 Amedeo Modigliani Boy in Short Pants 1918 Oil on Canvas Excerpt: “I was writing religiously pages, volumes, ideas flowing, and now a cramp. I fear some may not want me to remember anything of what happens or steal from my life so I don’t chronicle but others do. The possibility exists. Not writing in the other log is crazy of sorts. Men women sexual attacks. Jealousy of many sorts shall I write all days, every day? There is …(him), “David”; “Michae: Marcus; and a gentle man friend from …. Invisible ink really works. Writers maybe trying to top my mind a paranoia of sorts. Still all possibilities in the universe exist. Monsieur from … has requested a weekend in a way. I still wonder if David is designed to love me or at least try, a gigilo, I hope not. As I am that important I imagine her being checked out as we speak. And a loss of memory is an illusion. Its all there and will never leave. I hope amnesia will not happen, still the dream of being taught how to move space. Going back to my body in a different time. On your own time period wonders of laying on a psychiatrist couch with the feeling of having forgotten bit and moans of my life. (I had the dream in high school I’m sure) Many days, and I wonder to let them go.” Note: There is no way to explain how I love Modigliani, but to say that when I gaze into the picture plain I am lost to the apparent world for what seems hours. I remember taking a hard look at Boy in Pants hanging from the gallery wall in the Dallas Museum of Art. I lost all sense of time and presence. I found myself listening to a headmaster counseling a young man in his office. I heard his secretary in the open room before. I heard the young master’s friends playing outside in the long yard behind the window in the office. I heard his parents echoing sighs before entering the room to claim their son. That day I knew why I called painting portals. Unaffected by the implications of studying photographs before laying out a painting, Modigliani’s models retain a heresy of mystery that CAD and Photoshop could only flirt with. Hmm. I need to find that article on Amedeo Modigliani that I carted around for years without complaint. I did not keep it for the retrospective discussion. It was the images, so many I cannot count, that I had to possess. There are so many picture in that article that not even a handful of posters from the museum shop could make up for the cache. Funny, there is an untrained painter carried by one of the galleries on Dragon Street in Dallas, Texas that just came to mind. He is a possible cross between African Tribal, Art Brut, and European finesse. The two exhibited side by side may cross inform and haunt each other well. As ever, stay hungry and curious. |
N.A. JonesPicking up where I left off. Archives
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