Provisional Painting Part
1 (my essay and blog post) ended on this statement: I’d rather make a living selling the
work, but I frustrate myself because why should the energetic somewhat messy work
I make sell for the prices I think it deserves if I myself often dismiss other
artists’ less-than-well crafted work as careless? I must continue to explore this
problematic area. As a way of entering into the topic of energetic expressive
work versus neatly crafted work, here are a few of the adjectives Rubinstein’s
uses to describe his exploration of what he calls provisional painting:
gloriously dumb, endless obliterations, humble beauty, free of touch-ups,
impossibility, risking inconsequence, extensive doodling, and abject awkwardness.
I personally can relate to all of these adjectives and often have thoughts of
this nature – including the desire to show my hand and thinking in my finished
works.
As I come to my studio
time and set about the goals of creating work – work that matters – to coin the
term that caught my eye on the CGU web site before I attended school here; I
dig deep to find my thoughts and feelings. I want my work to look hand-made and
emotional, but I wonder how that fits in with my preference to view finished
work that looks deliberate and well crafted. Last week I visited the work of Máximo González (well crafted) and this week I took a
detour to visit Rauschenberg and Motherwell (both worked with what looks like
to me as more immediacy) at MOCA. As much as I hated Rauschenberg’s “Bed”
painting when I saw it as a child, his work now intrigues me. Sadly it has been
a long time since I have been deeply touched by a work of art, for the past six
years or so I am always looking at works of art and asking myself, “how was it
made?” or “I’ll have to try that.”
How does painting matter?
How can I make it matter for me when even other artists freely question
painting’s relative importance? Consider this quote from an article on Provisional
Painting in response to Rubinstein, June 2, 2009 by Wes Freese: “The idea of impossibility
in painting is an effect of the somewhat real fact that painting has no
significant role on society, or even culture.” He goes on to discuss why he
says this at great length, then turning a 360 or would it be a 180, in his
article and stating that painting matters to him very much!
Painting matters to me
too, it has been my entry into understanding things in the world. When I was as
young as 6 years old, I would spread out on the floor and paint and paint and
paint. Then, during middle and high school, my way of dealing with the reality
of living in this strange land called the USA (I grew up abroad) was to escape
into the art room as much as possible; both at home and at school and I would
draw or paint away my time. Even in college, while studying Graphic Design I
can remember covering my carpeted dorm room floor with newspaper so that I
could paint well into the night, not even for class or a grade – and that's while in college! In my first
home, the living room became my studio. I got married and almost lost a part of
me; I did not paint for 4 years. The growing of my first child inside my belly
re-awakened that part of me that needed to paint. I haven’t stopped since. I
paint because I can and because through painting I have found a way to exist in
this world. My own painting informs me, regardless of whether it informs anyone
else. I can say: painting matters to me. As I finally say that out loud and
with courage, while here at CGU, I also am beginning to realize that history is
exciting, and the whole world has begun to have a context for me through seeing
things through other visual artists attempts at making meaning. This is an
exciting time for me.
Still, does it matter to
others when the work looks dashed off? Have I really reached into my most deep
well of courage to really show how much I care about painting? My teachers are
beginning to tell me that they don’t see it – that they hear my passion but
that my work does not yet show it. Is this a game too? What if I have already
done my best work? Am I attracted to the idea of “Provisional Painting” as an
excuse to dash off “inconsequential work” while I really feel that the best
painting in the Art World shows a huge amount of care and craft? I don’t think
so, I am drawn in by Rubinstein’s thoughtful quote describing painters painting
what he coins as provisional painting: “They also harbor a broader concern with
multiple forms of imperfection: not merely what is unfinished but also the
off-kilter, the overtly offhand, the not-quite-right. The idea is to cast aside
the neat but rigid fundamentals learned in art school and embrace everything
that seems to lend itself to visual intrigue—including failure.”
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2011/06/new-casualists.html
