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Downtown by the Courthouse, Union, Missouri, US Highway 50, 2019
acrylic on four shaped ragboard panels, artist-made frames, 6 9/16 x 42 1/8 x 1 15/16 inches |
In the fall of 2014, I hit the road to cross the continent
on U.S. Highway 50. Beginning in Ocean City, Maryland, I headed west in the
direction of California. Traversing the midsection of America, embraced the
states of Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. I
intended to photograph the towns and cities along the way. In addition to the
towns and cities, the plan was to capture the topography of natural places, the
rivers, plains, mountain ranges, deserts, scrublands and forests that occupy
the continental expanse between the waves of opposing oceans. The direction of
my journey mirrored the growth and expansion of the United States. Although I
never gave it that much thought, the age of many of communities reflected that
history. I just wanted to chronicle the American scene from the vantage point
of a single highway.
Not long into the trip, I began to understand that I wouldn’t
be able to account for every single town along the way. Some communities didn’t
exist on the map, while others were simply missed because I failed to see that
I’d driven through them. Sometimes I turned around to correct the mistake, and
sometimes I didn’t. Without the abstraction of a map, it is hard to determine what
is or is not a town.
I never fully expected to document everything along the way.
A full accounting of the towns swallowed by cities would have required getting
on and off freeways trying to find the heart of particular places in the middle
of smog infested sprawl. That level of commitment would have added a lot of
time to the trip, consuming funds that I couldn’t afford to spend. Wandering
through congested intersections trying to find community cores long lost to the
circumference of cities, probably would have destroyed the feeling of freedom
that comes from chasing down a horizon. Union, Missouri was the first town far
enough removed from the stuff of St. Louis for me to want to resume
photographing the trip. On another day, mood and atmosphere may have changed
everything. As I recall, I was quite a way out before I recovered the mood of solitude
attuned to the rhythm of the highway.
As I considered my journey, I noticed that I shot very few
places as a single photograph. That should not be surprising. I long ago
disregarded the concept of the composed. It seldom got at the nature of place. Photographing
immense concrete canisters half cast in shadow can capture a stunning array of
shades in rolling forms of architecture, but it doesn’t say anything about the
surrounding town, or how those lofty grain elevators relate to the rumble of moving
freight trains. The proportions that shaped rectangular framing when artists routinely
painted portraits of aristocratic families are poorly matched to the task of
embracing the geography of travel. What oncoming town can properly be defined without
the horizon? How do you fit the tree lined streets that profile an interlocking
sky of protruding rooftops, power-lines, steeples, and the metallic gleam of a
solitary water tower into a space designed to house a family portrait?
The history of Western art didn’t have much of anything to
say about the landscape in the beginning. Painting was primarily used to depict
mythology, Biblical scenes, and aristocracy. The landscape was rarely subject
matter in and of itself. When it did appear, it was usually part of a larger
story, like the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. Since Biblical and
mythological events could not be observed, the participants and scenery had to
be imagined. Models standing in for gods and heroic figures created staging. Within
that space, it was natural enough to make the leading man or woman the center
of attention. By trying to drive the viewer’s gaze to the main character
through devices such as perspective and lighting, a focal point was born and
composition became an important part of making art.
As my mind rummages through images from art history, what I
discover are configurations of leading figures and secondary cast members.
Composition was designed with people in mind. Hierarchy, the concept of
thinking that some people are more important than others became a way of portraying
everything around us. Flowers arrangements involving bottles, pots and saucers,
shouldn’t have a need for one of the containers to stand out on the table. Dominance
in a painting of fresh cut flowers has nothing to do with seeing. Being human, our
egocentric thoughts consume our perspective. It doesn’t matter where we’re looking,
the rules remain the same. We treat scenery as though it had human
consciousness. Barn, horse and tree are crammed into a compositional huddle
that resembles yet another family snapshot. A concrete silo is framed as though
it would know how to pose for a portrait. What gets lost in painting a mountain
range is that its granite mass sat upon the plain long before portraits were ever
conceived of Jesus or a king. Earth and sky and everything in between should
not be confined to the interior dimensions that were historically used for painting
people. The great outdoors is defined by atmospheric space, where distance is the
measurement of shades shifting to the lackluster blue of a warped horizon. For
those attuned to the highway, the profile of sites resides within an overwhelming
sense of atmosphere. What I am trying to say is that the subject matter of any
vista is always space. The thing that makes a landscape real is the absence of
a stage. The sky overrides the notion of any man-made thing being equivalent to
a king. You may be thrilled by highlights on a silo, but the thing that
dominants all other things is an atmospheric weight that can’t be defined by a
pose or profile. How can you encompass the brilliance of sunlight or shepherd
the will of the wind? Human thoughts of dominance have very little to do with
the buoyancy of a blue horizon. The embrace of landscape is the manifestation
of space.
In my time at college, there was never any history given for
the origins of composition. No one tried to explain why a focal point should
apply to rudiments of a horizon. It was simply understood that painting required
designing. Straight up observation was never enough. The experience of everyday
seeing couldn’t be conveyed through painting. The sight of turned up earth and
silo was not enough to make a painting great. That kind of experience couldn’t
be understood as being any good without the concept of dominance being brought
into the picture. If you think scenery needs to be tweaked or rearranged for it
to be compelling, I hesitate to say that’s entirely wrong. I’ve never been interested
in depicting people or painting items placed on a table. The life I enjoy has
been about the highway. The trill of weekend drives inspired me to take up painting
when I was a child. My perspective comes from a need to embrace the depth of
perception seen while gazing out at a horizon. That need could be just as
flawed as the compositional thinking that I believe to be so misleading. My
view could be derived from shyness. I don’t like crowds. I seem to need a lot
of space to feel at ease. Because of that fact, I may not be drawn to patterns
that mirror the structure of social events. Still, my human intuition is
probably closer to the makeup of nature because it doesn’t require the artist
to decide what part of the scenery is supremely meaningful. What I see is
exactly as it should be. I can’t imagine making any of it better. In that
respect, I could be religious. I feel much smaller than the things I try to
describe. Sky as sky cannot be shaped into anything greater by adulations of
paint.
I’ve taken enough photographs to know, that two consecutive
shots of any place provide enough perspective to establish a sense of
direction. Within that framing, you’ll probably find something that resembles a
composition. That amount of space embraces something that could be called delineation.
Just like when trying to draw attention to the countenance of a king, there is
a pull which does the same kind of thing. The expanse of consecutive snapshots
is filled with a perspective that can’t be denied, drawing the viewer into the
scenery. The difference being that the viewer gets to choose what destination he
or she is drawn to. Painting is based on observation. The choice to delineate
or compose is a matter of perspective. A composition tries to make it plain,
that a specific person or thing is the most crucial part of a painting. Delineation
doesn’t comprehend individual significance. Because it knows everything is
connected, its devotion of focus extends everywhere. In composition, the
delivery of space happens on a stage. That might be fine for a literary
production or family snapshot, but it doesn’t begin to comprehend what it means
to be outside. Composition comes with the limitations of a box. It can’t hold
very much. That rationing shapes what we select to see. The isolation of
prominent sites is forced upon us. Snapshots taken on vacation seldom do the
trick. The singularity of a mountain or tower can’t begin to tap into the
essence of memory, because that isn’t what we see standing where the latitude
of sight bleeds into breadth of yawning atmosphere. Compositional framing can’t
fully embrace the meaning of place, because it tries to apply the standards of
indoor habitat to an environment truly beyond those dimensions.
If two snapshots are enough to establish some kind of connection,
why do so many of my paintings rely on a span of three or more photographs? I
hadn’t thought about it before. But on this trip, I began to realize that what
I sought for so many years was something greater than the delineation of space.
Although the combination of two snapshots is similar to composition, I seem to
follow the advancing camera until it has moved through enough frames to engage
a visual position. That doesn’t mean that the description of a place should be
thought of as fixed or definitive. Within the range of any location, there are
limitless stories to tell. When the advancing camera stops, it just means that
I think I’ve captured enough to justify suspension. Nothing in that says this
is it. There could be more. There could be so much more. It just signifies that
I hit the first frame that secures the character of place.
In embracing the landscape, I ended up chasing something
that could be called narrative. My childhood imagination always recited a
dialog of sites on the way to any horizon. That innate nature survived to
thrive into adulthood. I see a parking lot with its shops and laundry mat as a
place of exploration. Having that kind of reaction, every site can’t help but
feel like it should be a feature piece dedicated to the thrill of living. Perhaps
what I do could be described as a kind of journalism. There is a story to tell,
but the facts matter. A couple of snapshots may pinpoint a place, but the word
on the street calls for a broader perspective.
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The two center panels depict the courthouse. Any two consecutive images taken
with a camera, will feel quite a bit like a composition. |
In my painting of Union, Missouri, the two center panels
depict the courthouse. The view in and of itself could be complete. There is
enough perspective to determine that the courthouse is part of a location.
Without that added space, the building would be just another architectural headshot,
a postcard kind of thing without the heft of gravity pulling everything
together. Composition seldom has enough perspective to convey navigation and
place. If those components are missing, it is difficult to see the terrain that
makes up mountain, town or valley. And without terrain, can a landscape
painting really be aligned with the land it was intended to describe?
Standing near the Oak intersection of Locust Street, I shot
beyond the courthouse. That extension enables the viewer to be like a
pedestrian. If you can visually move around, frozen moments begin to melt away into
a tale of exploration. Exploration requires time, and with that time, painting can
become a living thing. It can describe blue sky, ornamental trees, a courthouse
surrounded by street lamp banners, a neon sign, fluorescent lights, a shadowed
wall, a window encased display of a wedding dress, and the indication of fall
where changing leaves succumb to the grip of October. Seeing is the story of
being there. It’s often been said, that a
picture paints a thousand words. If
that’s true, and I believe it is, most of the words are going to be nouns and
adjectives. Although painting can’t explain, it’s great at illustration.
I hesitate to say that my painting could be narrative. Because
the idea behind narrative painting troubles me, I’ve got some explaining to do.
The category as defined is deceptive. It leads people to think that a certain
kind of painting has the capacity to explain the action of unknown events. That’s
what storytelling does and stories can’t be told without language. Perhaps,
narrative painting should be defined as the depiction of an incident so widely
known that it wouldn’t need a picture to visualize it. A canvas of the Last Supper may make a great painting,
but it doesn’t reveal anything that wasn’t already known. The story it tells
was already in the head of the person seeing it. I know I’m stating the
obvious, but the statement should make it plain that all painting is the same.
It can depict, but it can’t carry on a conversation. A painting of an apple can
say apple, because the viewer already
knows what an apple is. Without prior knowledge, the Last Supper is just a painting of a dinner party. No amount of
paint could ever betray the middle figure as Jesus. Just like with the example
of the apple, the information was already known.
Now that the Last
Supper has been exposed as being basically the same as the Apple, we can go on to say that although
painting can’t do storytelling, it has the capacity to recite the details of sight,
which words simply cannot handle. When writing about sky, the concept is so
ethereal that the only the word that can really describe sky is sky. As an
atmospheric noun, there are never enough adjectives to color in transitions of
blue. The nouns and adjectives of routine seeing are so numerous that if they were
all written down to describe a place, the ability to envision it would be consumed
by chaos. Language simply cannot deliver all the details my painting provides
and remain unbroken. Any attempt would require inventory lists, itemizing
details and relationships which could never be arranged in a sequence that
could be read from any starting point, in any direction, and be completely
understood in an instant. That is the domain of paint. When depicted as
imagery, nouns and adjectives are not restricted by the linear constraints of
language.
Painting can easily relay the information of sight. In that
respect, it exceeds language. But it can’t examine love, fashion a plot, or
casually say, I think it’s going to rain
tomorrow. So in what respect could my painting offer more than a description?
A lot of it has to do with the span of perspective. By going beyond parameters
of composition, the viewer gets to choose how to investigate the setting. With
that choice, the viewer stops being a bystander. Because Union, Missouri is
presented in rolling sequence, the navigation of place happens naturally. In
the concrete details of the tree lined streets, there is a spirit of
recognition. It is an inventory list of routine details, which in many cases
the viewer didn’t realize had any clout. Responding to frozen moments inhibits
reaction time long enough to see beyond banality. It may be a scene that the
viewer wouldn’t normally like, but being anywhere comes with a collection of
memories. In the depiction of a particular place, it is the act of navigation
that grabs the imagination. When vision is painted as the tool that it really
is, it can’t help but fuel connections. Getting anywhere is dependent upon information
that painting frequently excludes. By profiling sight over the composed focus
of isolation, scenery begins to tell a story. I have no idea what the story
will convey. But within the rudiments of a small town intersection, there are
impressions that ignite the recognition of having seen this kind of place before.
Because I’ve done nothing to influence your perspective, the connections you
see will be entirely your own. In my imagination, as far back as I can
remember, I was a travel guide and explorer. When I realized that nearly everything
I saw went well beyond the window of composition, I changed the way I painted.
Openness without focus was so much closer to the navigation of getting around,
that many could feel a connection to forlorn parking lots. As a kind of travel
guide, I see no distinction between barnyards and national parks. I paint moments
that everyone knows. By painting the routine passage of time, I capture the
beauty of what it means to see. Living can be hectic. Seeing another bleached
out street can feel mundane. Attending church next to an ailing shopping center
probably doesn’t do much to inspire, but what does that have to do with vision?
You’re alive! The sky is still the sky. Seeing is such a gift that I can’t begin
to comprehend banality even in a desolate parking lot. With that enthusiasm, I
tap into the bare bones of living. In going for the moment, any moment, there
is a commonality we share, and it is that commonality that reads as narrative.
