Provisional Painting – Part 2

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.artinamericamagazine.com/features/provisional-painting-raphael-rubinstein/

http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2011/05/provisional-painting-at-modern-art/

http://wfreese.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/provisional-painting/
http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/features/provisional-painting-part-2/
http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2012/02/raphael-rubenstein-revisits-provisional.html

http://www.twocoatsofpaint.com/2011/06/new-casualists.html