Writings

“What finally emerges?  Or rather, what finally emerges when we resist the typical interpretive ploy of exclusion, of referring to a picture as revealing something (its presumed subject) and suppressing most everything else, of promoting a position and refusing others?  Consider Parallel Rendering 1, 1996.  There curving strokes sometimes end abruptly as they intersect with other bars of color, yet they continue visually as an embossed ghost of a former presence.  In another painter’s work such an effect might detract from the primary pictorial theme, but for Winters it serves to remove a sense of dominance or singleness of purpose and to raise the level of sensory tension.  The “pattern” in Parallel Rendering 1 is decidedly hard to define, not an unusual condition of Winters’s art.  His designs are incompossibles.  They move simultaneously in several directions, having multiple senses that make no (one) sense.  Parallel Rendering 1 forms a grid, a mesh, a weave, a set of angles, a set of curves, a spiral, an ellipse and a rectangle, all in a glance.  It is thick and thin, dense and airy.  When one visual or tactile direction in the work becomes dominant, another intervenes, whether as opposition or merely as modification.  Some of the shifts affect our spatial sense; some affect our temporal sense.  Each of the many elements of pattern that constitute the one unruly diagram of Winters’s painting is a sensory force that impacts on all others.  By actively interfering and leaving traces of conflict (the ridges and bumps of a Winters oil painting), each element becomes as much like the others as it can be.  The very fact of the material interference and physical contiguity causes all conceivable resemblance to become evident.  Rectangles begin to circle, and the curving line goes straight.  Yet this happens with every element retaining its material specificity.  Interference — over which Winters might claim an unintended mastery — is that tenuous moment at which sameness and difference are equally evident as relational values, as mutual inflection.”

Richard Shiff, from Manual Imagination, from the catalog                   Terry Winters, Paintings, Drawings, Prints 1994-2004 

…

The simultaneity of differing states.

May 6, 2009

For us not to understand love as the generative base of what is — and what we make — not just metaphysically but physically, in a mundane simple way — is to radically miss the point and the fundamental direct truth of what is going on.  This is not an emotional or sentimental notion — it is not a romantic notion, nor is it relegated to the mystical or metaphysical.  It is direct, daily and practical — actual, available, immediate as the air we breathe — is the air we breathe.

When Coomaraswamy says let’s tell them the truth, that all great art is about God — beyond and before the theological implications — this is his meaning.

“…form as field…”  –  Adam Weinberg in describing works by Terry Winters

May 2, 2009

It came up again the other day when I was teaching a workshop – this business of the two dimensional and the three dimensional. We were talking about different attitudes among the participants in their work, and among painters in general. Some painters seem to be interested more in the three dimensional experience and illusion of a painting, creating that space to look into, to drop into. Some seem to be more preoccupied with the two dimensional structure and surface of the canvas – the design. But a great deal of the power and magic of painting comes precisely from the interplay, the dynamic back and forth between the painting’s presentation of three dimensional form and space and the two dimensional structure and surface and the actuality of the canvas. Our back and forth experience between space and surface creates a kind of inner hum, and performs a kind of magic. It creates a kind of in-between place that’s real and not real, necessarily at the same time. A kind of transitional object for adults. The great painters all do this, consistently.

There is another aspect of a more general kind that comes into play here. Our daily experience as human beings is one of an inside and an outside. I have a subjectivity; I am in here. And the world is out there – doing what it is doing. And somehow the power of a painting, when is it ripe and full, this dual experience and identity as space and surface, of flat and full, this back and forth, runs parallel and gives access to, functions as a stand-in for, the constant, daily, fluctuating experience of being human – of objectivity and subjectivity, of an inside and an outside – which is the real illusion.

“When you look up at the clear sky at night, you may easily realize a truth at once utterly simple and extraordinarily profound. What is it that you see? The moon, planets, stars, the luminous band of the Milky Way, perhaps a comet or even the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy two million light years away. Yes, but if you simplify even more, what do you see? Objects floating in space. So what does the universe consist of? Objects and space.

“If you don’t become speechless when looking out into space on a clear night, you are not really looking, not aware of the totality of what is there. You are probably only looking at the objects and perhaps seeking to name them. If you have ever experienced a sense of awe when looking into space, perhaps even felt a deep reverence in the face of this incomprehensible mystery, it means you must have relinquished for a moment your desire to explain and label and have become aware not only of the objects in space but of the infinite depth of space itself. You must have become still enough inside to notice the vastness in which these countless worlds exist. The feeling of awe is not derived from the fact that there are billions of worlds out there, but the depth that contains them all.

“You cannot see space, of course, nor can you hear, touch, taste, or smell it, so how do you even know it exists? This logical-sounding question already contains a fundamental error. The essence of space is no-thingness, so it doesn’t ‘exist’ in the normal sense of the word. Only things – forms – exist. Even calling it space can be misleading because by naming it, you make it into an object.

“Let us put it like this: There is something within you that has an affinity with space; that is why you can be aware of it. Aware of it? That’s not totally true either because how can you be aware of space if there is nothing there to be aware of?

“The answer is both simple and profound. When you are aware of space, you are not really aware of anything, except awareness itself – the inner space of consciousness. Through you, the universe is becoming aware of itself!

“When the eye finds nothing to see, that no-thingness is perceived as space. When the ear finds nothing to hear, that no-thingness is perceived as stillness. When the senses, which are designed to perceive form, meet an absence of from, the formless consciousness that lies behind perception and makes all perception, all experience, possible, is no longer obscured by form. When you contemplate the unfathomable depth of space or listen to the silence in the early hours just before sunrise, something within your resonates with it as if in recognition. You then sense the vast depth of space as your own depth, and you know that precious stillness that has no form to be more deeply who you are than any of the things that make up the content of your life.”

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p.217-219

December 9, 2008

Reading David Galenson’s book – Old Masters and Young Geniuses – where he provides a very powerful and helpful construct for questions surrounding artistic creativity, when I think about painting, about what painting has to do with life, with being human, it’s clear to me that the side of things I come down on is the side of the “Old Masters”, in Galenson’s terms - what he refers to as the Experimentalists as opposed to the “Young Geniuses” which he calls the Conceptualists. The Experimentalists - the Cezannes, the Titians, the Giacomettis, the Matisses (I think he misidentified that one) of the world – as opposed to the Stellas, the Warhols, even the Raphaels. One of the valuable things that comes out of Galenson’s writing is that there is no right or wrong – just two very different approaches to artmaking – with a spectrum along the way – but two basic dispositions. And it’s always been that way. But the problem we’re facing in our day isn’t the Reign of the Duchampian Conceptualists – it’s the all-pervading influence of the market, with its overarching value of profit, which due to sheer structural necessity has a bias towards what Galenson describes as Conceptual and less of an interest in the Experimental. Galenson looks at the aspect of innovation as the salient point as to whether an artist becomes important historically. While I may beg to differ whether in the end that is the truest mark of importance, there’s no doubt that that is how things have been tallied and described in terms of art history. And during the 20^th century the newsmakers have been the Conceptualists due to the speed with which their innovations takes place: they are younger, and it’s faster to give a form to an idea than to a murkier, felt-through vague sense of purpose that attends to the way the Experimentalists work. Well, that being the case, it sure as hell is clear why the Conceptualists have gotten most of the fanfare – aside from the cult of youth in our culture – it is innovation that turns the market, that creates the next new, hot thing – that makes the money swell. Our economic system has no real patience with these Experimentalists that plod along, doing the same thing over and over, developing incrementally. Of course, in retrospect that may not be the case – look at Cezanne, Morandi, Auerbach – but the headlines, the story line, the big moolah – goes to the young bucks – Johns, Hirst, Koons.

Okay, that being said – and I’ve got nothing against the Conceptual on face value – it’s the raging glorification of it and the neglect of the Experimental as a symptom of our corporate culture that is the real crux of the problem – when I think of what it is that I find a desire to say it has to do with the essential nature of the Experimentalists’ endeavor. There is something inherent in that murky, plodding along that touches something ultimately more real and more powerful than what a Conceptualist approach can accomplish. There, I’ve said it. But I mean no fight. What I mean is that when we get very close to what is –there is no thinking, there are no concepts. When we slow down and become intimate with the experience of life – we are aware without words, without ideas. While the realm of thought is extremely necessary for all sorts of things, like writing and reading these words, like creating all sorts of things like bridges, buildings, vaccines, whole wheat bread, a nice linen jacket, to mention just a few things – remaining in the realm of thought and not venturing into the wordless experience of being, of silence, of stillness – this cuts us off from the deepest aspects of ourselves, of what it is to be human. A conceptual approach might point to the idea of being, the idea of silence or of stillness, but the resonance of such a work of art, it’s energetic presence, remains in the vibration of thought – we “get” the idea – our minds might get a kick from it, but our hearts remain unmoved. In order for our hearts to be moved a different order of resonance needs to be present – the work of art needs to embody an energetic presence that can only occur when the person creating the piece leaves the realm of thinking and takes the risk involved in allowing something larger and unknown to occur, of taking the risk of allowing oneself to enter something larger and unknown, of allowing the work to move into the unknown – then it is the energy of life itself that enters the making, the alchemy, and when there is enough heat transforms the material into an embodiment of being. Then there is real presence. Then our hearts are moved as well as our minds stirred. It is not the idea of the energy of life entering the equation – it is life-force itself. But this can only happen when one opens to what is not known. And that is why as influential as Duchamp has been to the art of the last half a century, it is Morandi’s still-lifes that touch my soul, that bring tears to my eyes, that remind me of what may be possible as a human being. I look to Titian.

July 9, 2008

Two days ago I went to see the Antonio Lopez Garcia show. It returned faith. Great power and tenderness, exquisite tenderness, breathtaking tenderness.

One of the students afterwards asked me what was it I so appreciated about Lopez Garcia. Was it his extraordinary realism? I explained that that wasn’t it – that wasn’t the main point. Realism is just his vehicle – he isn’t simply depicting appearances, he is communing with aspects of his life, of his world. He isn’t interested ultimately in mastery – he’s interested in communion. That’s why so many works are unfinished and why so many take place over so many years.

I tried to explain that what moved me, what touched me was what was happening inside of him, where he was in his act of painting, how that in turn transformed his material, embodied that experience, that frequency, in the materiality – and the material waits, the painting, the drawing, waits for sympathetic attendance – like a still tuning fork coming close to one that is vibrating, and in turn receives the same frequency, same thing. And here the frequency, in the end of it all, is love. I mean, in the depiction, in the questioning and answering of his investigation of appearances, in that back and forth, inside that dialogue, is a faith, a sustenance – love.

Love. Big word. Inside of everything real.

“Sanctuary is invisible.”

– Ad Reinhardt

April 24, 2002

Because we are nurtured in a superficial society, a surface society and culture, when we look for meaning we do not know how to look for it in the depths of things, under the surface. The outcome is an invention of meaning from the mind that is detached from the core of the world, from existence. When there is a sense of connection to the depths of things then there is vision. That’s what vision is. Without it painting is meaningless and even misleading: distraction posing as purpose.

August 28, 2001

The 40”x50” is starting to find its form.  Its overall form.

There’s still an uncertainty, but something is coalescing.

I always forget how long it takes to make a large painting.

Definitely something about the structure that’s been elusive for me.  The 4×5 thing and the diagonals down to the bottom with so much floor.

It’s getting clarified.  Like murky water, as the sediment settles, becomes clarified.

Hey Tom Banjo
It’s time to matter
The Earth will see you
on through this time
The Earth will see you
on through this time

from Mountains of the Moon, words by Robert Hunter