on the easel

A photo of the painting I wrote about in the last post. Phase 1.

The other night I started a new painting. It felt good, as it always does when I have spent some time away from the brushes and oils. I am beginning to work with circles and curves, something I have only really thought about in the last year or so. It is freeing in a way. I am intrigued now, as I have been for many years, the hard straight line. My paintings and drawings spilled over with triangles, rectangles, squares. Diagonals reaching back into space or maybe forward. The curved line is something completely different. It is soft. It is organic. Years after working with organic forms using the straight line, I am now thinking about the curved line, which in some ways is the more natural line of those forms. In some ways. There still continues to be much to be said about the straight line and I could never give up the fascination I have with it. It is nice to begin a new relationship.

4.52p Tuesday

Cubism will never die. Even today, it still serves as the basis of many works of art. Painting is about reinventing but it is also about looking to the past. The great artists of the world have done that and the great artists continue to do so. Artists today may be unable to hike up the hills with Cezanne but they can look at what he has left behind. Painters leave art. Even if they never think to do so, they do and isn't it the responsibility of those in the present to learn about the past? Where have we come from? That is a question that crosses all platforms. And, if we are to look at the past, no doubt we will be influenced by it in some way. As humans, we are influenced by everything we see. Trees, the sky, a rock, the wrapper of a candy bar tossed on the ground. We see these things and for a split second or two, we think about these things. Maybe longer. Then it leaves. Or so we think. But does it really? Or is it merely tucked away somewhere - a memory of sorts. Should we stop painting trees? Should we no longer paint the sky? It has been done before. For those artists who claim that certain movements are dead, cubism among that lot, I ask them this - why aren't the artists of today totally reinventing subject matter. Forget about movements. What about subject.

Leave a thought if you are passing through.

Princess of Power, 1988, lithograph, 36x25 in
Grace Hartigan


A few months ago, I received a letter from mica, a Maryland art school, inviting me to come for an interview for application to the MFA program. I had contacted them regarding summer classes so I suppose they dug my name and address out of their computer and decided to invite me in. At first I was hesitant but then thought, why not go see what it is about. I scheduled my interview and was told that I would meet with the director of the program, Grace Hartigan. I made duplicates of my slides, I updated my resume (which I was told to bring) and I set out last Friday for the interview. When it was time, I was brought into the office of G. Hartigan who already had begun looking over my slides. She told me I couldn't draw hands and feet. She told me that I knew everything I needed to from cubism and to stop breaking up my planes. She told me that my copies from the masters were better than my original work and at the end told me that I couldn't draw. She recommended a post-bac program. The odd little man who had brought me in to meet with her coordinated a visit with the director of the post-bac program later in the day. I went and had an enjoyable lunch, stopped at a local thrift store and returned to the school. Upon entering the building, I walked past a group of cookie-cutter students all listening intently to their guide. I got on the elevator and made my way upstairs. I met with the director of the post-bac program who talked about the program. I asked what the classes were like. He told me that they were mainly undergraduate classes with a few graduate topics also included. Wait right there. I have an undergraduate degree. I don't need to return to undergraduate school. He then went on to tell me that it was a mix of people in the program, particularly biologists who hung out around the art department a lot in school. Oh and there were some people who just decided to be a better artist. And some were even doing installation. I was disgusted and insulted. I left, pretty upset, telling myself that art school is for followers. And so as my rage continues but is beginning to subside, I give you a piece by G. Hartigan, the woman who told me that I could not draw. Enjoy.