Category: Art

#646 Gates of Unknowing

68.5 x 56 cm. Watercolor, ink, burned Buddhist paper.
Artists learn early that art won’t save us. Not that it ‘can’t,’ but that it won’t. A refusal. No different for the few who find ways to manipulate the capitalist machine to grant them false compensation in money, though that may make it easier to hide from the truth.
I’ve been thinking about this as I’ve worked on my last few pieces. No more than our children can save us, I thought. I feel, even as I work, the increasing distance, this alien thing, this work of my hand and eye–how it absorbs something of the power of the sacred, a power that is not, and never was, my own. And never will be. Like our children–we want them to live, to shine with that life that will never be ours,  even as they abandon us to death.

#646 Gates of Unknowing.JPG

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#643

27.5 x 15 cm. Ink wash, pen & ink, watercolor.
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I feel like I should come up with a name for these. I find a lot in them–and enjoy looking at them. There’s a dynamic tension, things pulling apart, and a lot of detail. Abstract drawing. Decay of the capitalist state? I’m not sure what it is I’m after in making them. Letting accidents guide my my pen.

# 640 Paines Gray with Red

I’ve been thinking about the art I’ve doing. About large pieces and small. The intimate abstractions, water color and ink–like the one at 3rd Street Gallery.
Why would I want to make larger pieces? They are the ones most easily absorbed and used. No mater how wild, how strange. They function as ‘public art,’ even when they’re not. No.
The small pieces–they don’t offer confirmation on that level–confirmation of the Great Social Delusion. They speak to the recesses of mind and heart, the incessant stirrings, the disquieting energy that moves behind the surface.
I started two more tonight. Between coughs, catching my breath. It even felt I could breath a bit easier, having done them. Tomorrow, begin another and finish these. February, day 3.
Go see my piece at 3rd Street tomorrow Let me know what you think

5″ x 4″ Watercolor, ink. One of the pieces I started last night.
No longer available.640-monotone-with-red

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