Richard Senerchia was over tonight, and comparing the stripe paintings with "world" (probably the zenith to date of my "traditional" compositions) and "landskip" (my first hard edged painting to use any sort of shaded or graded color - in the "sun" shape). he told me that he'd always preferred my older work because it displayed an element of irrationality.
I later began to think that perhaps I was taking my art a bit too seriously - it is easy to be seduced by artforumlike self-consciouses and rationalization of every brush stroke or spray-can pass.
If my paintings are to reflect me, they should not be 100% complexity and finality anyway. I am, after all, the happiest person I know. So I resolved to put the grin into my painting-in-progress "Roots" (the forms suggest the gold "fish scales" which were my very first happy invention [although I actually stole them from the hood of a greaser's custom-painted Chevy]). And to give credit where credit is due by re-christening it "Roots: Broken House" after the moribund, long-deserted Senerchia property so named by Richard's four-year old daughter Martha. I enjoy talking about art with Richard more than with anyone I know. He disagrees with me in a most cheerful and thoughtful manner His reply to my key-note remark about creating interest rather than beauty was a defense of beauty as an art standard which I with I remembered well enough to set down. I would certainly trade my subscription to artforum to hear it, if I could. (Alas, I cannot, for I've no subscription to artforum).
28 February '75
Seeing the Richard Anuskiewicz (sp?) at the Corcoran Biennial makes me realize that there is a school of "Art by Exertion" that demands one's attention whether or not it's any good. One simply cannot ignore a work with hundreds of 3/16" tape lines laid so precisely with hundreds of edges of acrylic paint sticking up with router-like exactness 1/32" above the plain of the canvas - even if it's a dull idea. I feel the same way about photorealist store fronts and used car lots and about 10'x12' pencil drawings.
And in fairness, I suppose my stripe paintings seem equally tiresome to some people. I would not agree (naturally) because I try to offer a great deal in each one. I've never understood those who can approach a canvas with but one idea and try to stretch it in importance until it fills the while surface. At best, this works one time or for one person (witness Ellsworth Kelly or Jackson Pollock) - there is, after all, everything to be said for expanding perception about techniques , about a color, about what a painting is.
And then witness Jules Olitski - his painting at the Corcoran had nothing to say that wasn't old in 1960. But he said it in one texture, one color, 5'x9'. Such a color and texture I would use for a 4" stripe among 15 contrasting stripes, and thus hopefully emphasize its real beauty? Strength? Innocuousness? Of course, some of my paintings may be too cluttered and busy - I'm still discovering whether greater success lies in restraint, going bananas, contrast, harmony, fewer stripes, or perhaps something else entirely, which might be called a sense of humor, more of me in each painting. I know that I shall find a new way to bring my textures and patterns alive as I did in my "traditional" compositions. I've so many textures and patterns waiting for expression that I've no choice.
28 February '75
Seeing the Richard Anuskiewicz (sp?) at the Corcoran Biennial makes me realize that there is a school of "Art by Exertion" that demands one's attention whether or not it's any good. One simply cannot ignore a work with hundreds of 3/16" tape lines laid so precisely with hundreds of edges of acrylic paint sticking up with router-like exactness 1/32" above the plain of the canvas - even if it's a dull idea. I feel the same way about photorealist store fronts and used car lots and about 10'x12' pencil drawings.
And in fairness, I suppose my stripe paintings seem equally tiresome to some people. I would not agree (naturally) because I try to offer a great deal in each one. I've never understood those who can approach a canvas with but one idea and try to stretch it in importance until it fills the while surface. At best, this works one time or for one person (witness Ellsworth Kelly or Jackson Pollock) - there is, after all, everything to be said for expanding perception about techniques , about a color, about what a painting is.
And then witness Jules Olitski - his painting at the Corcoran had nothing to say that wasn't old in 1960. But he said it in one texture, one color, 5'x9'. Such a color and texture I would use for a 4" stripe among 15 contrasting stripes, and thus hopefully emphasize its real beauty? Strength? Innocuousness? Of course, some of my paintings may be too cluttered and busy - I'm still discovering whether greater success lies in restraint, going bananas, contrast, harmony, fewer stripes, or perhaps something else entirely, which might be called a sense of humor, more of me in each painting. I know that I shall find a new way to bring my textures and patterns alive as I did in my "traditional" compositions. I've so many textures and patterns waiting for expression that I've no choice.
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