Friday, December 12, 2014

Childhood Memories of Canada, the Discovery of Painting, the Conflict between Content and Design, and Finding a World Already Composed


This is something I painted when I was 11 years old.  Even then, I didn't
 always go for the most dramatic thing I could find.

I was lucky to have a dad that bought me oil paints for Christmas when I was 10.  Although, I didn’t know how to use them, I proceeded as if I did.  I painted this as an 11 year old.  At that age, art meant nothing.  I wasn’t looking to capture some kind of drama.  The concept of a composition was an idea that did not exist.  When I looked at something, I was interested in a feeling.  Here, there is a road of trees, mountains, sky, and shadows.  The day is like many other days.  Looking back on those early paintings, it seems to me that I must have been interested in the moment.

Although I was in love with mountains and clouds by the time I started painting, there was a time when I had no such preferences.  That is probably true of all children.  At first, all is wonder.  Then when we learn that weeds are weeds, wonderment becomes judgment.  Because I am primarily a visual person, memory takes me back to a time that could precede speech.  I remember the sputter of a neon sign in the night when I was 2.  To the surprise of my mother, I could describe our apartment over the drugstore years later.  I remember my baby sister Kim coming home from the hospital when I was not quite 3.  I remember snowflakes caught in a pot, and the pleasure of digging up dirt and discovering that halves become whole when practicing the magical math of cut up earthworms.  The sound of frogs filled the woods.  A ship stood at the end of a street.  Church consisted of a world that existed outside its windows.  Chain link fencing secured backyard grass.  The house stucco was rough to touch.  Music played on reel to reel tape.  A highway drive, gloomy skies and an A & W Root Beer sign occupy memories of early childhood.  There was the panic of almost losing my best friend by leaving her behind on a bus, a doll I called Suzie.  There is the memory of a great lake long before I knew the name Lake Ontario.  I remember grandparents, the scent of tobacco, and the sound of small boats on the water.  Even now, the faint sound of a lawnmower recalls a Canadian infancy.

So much of who we are can become lost by the time we leave early childhood.  Painting became a conscious thought when I was 5.  I may have seen paintings before, but that is when I realized that the visual world was something that could be described.  I was with my dad.  We stopped to see a yard sale of paintings.  They were landscapes.  I realized I could describe what saw, but because I saw a small sampling of what a landscape could be, without knowing it, my vision had been narrowed.  I didn’t understand that I could also paint something like activity around a school bus until I saw a painting of a school bus stopped at a crosswalk.  That is the problem with art.  It is difficult to conceptualize painting without first seeing a canvas covered in paint.  But once you know what painting looks like, that information has a habit of closing down the thought process.  Knowledge can lead to freedom, but it can also be a trap.  Once a narrative is set, it can be extremely difficult to imagine any other alternative.

 I took a design class in college that emphasized the importance of composition.  Although I was aware of the concept, the idea suddenly troubled me.  Though I never considered painting everything, once much of what I saw was taken off the table due to the implications of design, I grew to hate the idea that the depiction of life was subservient to the demands of art.  Had I had a B plan, my life as an artist would have been over.  I instinctively felt the idea was wrong, but I saw no way to debate it.  For the next few years, I lived a life of compromise.

I thoroughly enjoyed the highway, and walking was always a joyful occupation.  I did these two things to see my surroundings.  I felt alive inhabiting the spaces around me.  I began to realize that the idea of placement only applied if you were living in the 2 dimensional space of paper or cannas, that the randomness of gravel had a kind of intelligence that exceeded that of the observer, that there was no need to worry or fuss because the world was already composed.  It dawned on me that I no longer needed to be the captain of my surroundings.  I could simply be.  I could be clouds billowing in the arrival of spring.  I could be rust, or the rustle of brittle leaves.  I could be shimmering heat waves on the horizon, a mercury colored dance of desolation.  I could be a hillside dotted with grazing cattle.  I could be industrial steam, indignation belching out disbelief in a Texas sky.  I could be the moment of encounter.  I could see the world as it really was.  I could leave the restrictive thoughts of rectangular lines behind and begin to paint my surroundings.  That had always been the point anyway.  As a child, I would have never thought that design was indeed needed to justify a depiction of life.

Hazen Market, Hazen, Nevada, Alternate US Highway 50
acrylic on 4 shaped ragboard panels

I’ve never argued that you cannot compose, or that great things cannot be accomplished by doing so.  I am just saying that it may not be necessary, that my work really has nothing to do with that thought process.  I know it is hard not to think, but the paintings look composed.  Perhaps, it may be instructive to think about that thought for a moment.  You have been given no other way to consider the things you see, so that is the only response that you could possibly have.  Again, it is hard to escape the notion that the camera simply did not point itself in this or that direction.  I agree.  But in thinking of continuum, any part of the whole is going matter, and that section, whatever section that might be, is definitely going to be worth seeing.  The point is that whatever happens to be selected is vitally important to the idea of time and place.  I don’t allow for the composed to manhandle the moment away.  To eliminate this or that thing for the greater good of a painting is to end up painting a place that never was.  That might be fine, it might be great, it might make for a fantastic painting, but that is not my reason for being a painter.  I never think I can improve upon a view of a reclining highway, let along do it justice.  The fact that it is completely out of my reach is what makes a little success so beguiling.  In all fairness, I am probably not the best person to discuss the merits of design.  When I look at a painting, I never see composition.  I can never find the focal point because I tend to see the entire canvas.  I don’t happen to care where the horizon is, or which way a woman may be facing.  If what I see intrigues me, I will remain a while.  If not, no amount of design can keep me from pacing down the hallway looking for something else to catch my attention.

Old Neighborhood Garage, Richardson, Texas
mixed media diorama

I guess a question worth asking is where did the principles of design come from?  We behave as if they were never invented.  While I can see why the church would want to make sure that Christ was the focal point of a painting, I wonder why the same kind of care should be given to a pear.  Given the wisdom of indifference that is inherent to nature, does it make any sense to select an element from earth or sky and treat it as if you were trying to please an egotistical king?


End of the Day at the North End of the Richardson Heights Shopping Center...
Left panel of 2 panels
mixed media diorama



While living in the suburbs, I often painted the suburbs.  People frequently thought I had a bag of tricks to shake things up with.  They had the idea that I did something to transform the everyday into something new and compelling.  The truth was that I didn’t do anything to the scenes around me other than include them in my life in much the same way that I embraced the sights of early childhood.

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