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| William Vaughn Howard Title Unknown acrylic and charcoal 27 1/2 x 22 |
This is a painting by my
college professor William Vaughn Howard.
When I entered his classroom, I was finished with painting. I remained an art student because I didn’t know
what else to do. Although, I had found a
place in drawing, an activity seldom practiced as a child because I
painted. In my view there was no need
for drawing; painting was the statement I wanted to make, and since I worked
from photographs there was no need for planning. There was no advantage to a sketch, painting
was drawing with a brush. For some odd
reason, the next drawing class never fit into my schedule and I was forced to
take painting. If I had had my way, I
would have focused on drawing and printmaking.
The reason for being disillusioned
was a simple one. Painting in practice
separated observation from believing that sight was decisive. The theology of paint stated that the visual
experience of day to day living could not engage without making changes to the
nature of place. This approach prefers
staged arrangements over happenstance.
It is hard to image the staged as a comprehensive encounter when
happenstance colors every situation. A
tea kettle whistles burner aglow. A phone
rings into the sound of hello. A child
screams out an enormous so are you! A
blue hued television seeps through panes of glass to catch a flash of passing light. Rivulets rain weight into a sagging black
hammock. A puddle of a parking lot is a
long shot from the warmer quarters of a dry café, the betrayal of a thoroughly
wasted day started by the startle of an alarm clock set for another occasion. The menu reads like faded paper, a half-life
of gazing print, the compensating squint of a man that cannot stand reading
glasses. How can the staged ever manage to
capture the meager sights of life, the true test of living?
Because art claimed to be more
compelling than life, I gravitated to drawing.
Drawing wasn’t as lifelike anyway. We don’t see a world of black and white. Without color, drawing was all about abstraction.
There wasn’t the same kind of tension. The decision had already been made for me; I wouldn’t
have to worry about making what I saw fit the demands of art, an idea I truly
detested.
When I saw my professor’s
abstractions, I thought I saw a poetry of place. Although nothing could be directly linked, I
thought I saw landscapes veiled within paint.
I found another place to be and began to paint again.
It is hard to know what to say
about a painting. Paint here represents
paint. Content is a collection of
movements, changes made many times to a rime of indecision until not knowing
becomes a knowing that says this is it.
Broken into many facets, this is a beautiful looking glass of
abstraction.
