Statement, 2007
A Room A Book A Puzzled Artist
Of late, I find myself interested in Space. How do we respond to this
concept as visual artists and as writers?
For instance, what happens when a painting, instead of being an object on a
wall becomes the wall itself or, better still, four walls enclosing a
certain pace. If you push your painting table into this area, your work
looms up above and beyond you on all sides. What might happen when I am
surrounded by and live within my work?
But wait. One wall remains empty. That openness, the empty canvas, is of
more importance to me that anything I might put on it. I find others
agreeing. Space, silence, even emptiness, is a reality for which we yearn.
"Give me some space!" was the rallying cry of "the next generation"—those
who now stand before my empty canvas, surprising themselves.
What says the writer? Surely words originated in marks in the dirt or on the
wall? Let's picture a poet encircled by listeners creating between
themselves a haunting experience, one to be repeated again and again. I hear
voices other than my own, creating an all but audible murmur in my space, my
studio.
::This statement is the first word of a show Bob Quade and I will have in
the studio in early September. More to come.
Statement, 2006
A painting becomes rich only when, like a person, it has lived a life. I like to leave evidence of this process on its face, if you will. Thoughts, actions, still moments - vestiges of these - remain, talking to the viewer.
As you go through life, what you focus on, what you care about, shifts. At 80, nigh onto, I care about the land and about solitude, silence and space. In my work I care also about songs, language and the sensual surprises of painting in oil.
Last year, when trying to understand Indiana by reading its early history, I ran into a definition of the term frontier. "A frontier is the hither edge of open land." That edge is where I find myself when I am painting. Looking for, indeed courting, the participation of others is precious. Between us lies open land. Often I find myself simply looking quietly at a person's face - continuing to listen, to hear, in a way similar to our approach to live music, theater and painting.
We value live music and theater partly because we don't know what will happen next! Our lives are themselves rather like that of a painting. We live in moments, a series of acts building gradually into the person we are now becoming.
