Every change brings gain and loss. Something is gained and something is lost, and the actor responsible for the change hopes for net good.
Making changes to a physical artwork is not like working in software; there is no Undo in an oil painting. Once a thing is changed, what it was is gone.
In this painting, the changes have been accompanied by excitement and anxiety. I think I have improved it over the 1986 version, but it has become a much different kind of image altogether. I tried to retain its original exuberance and acknowledge its original structure, even while I was aware of its new, sophisticated handlings and its new emphasis on unified perspective.
Robert Grilley lives
I've just begun reworking a painting from my M.F.A exhibition; I saved the painting, along with a few others from that show, during many moves in intervening years. The painting was a "portrait" of Mark Arnold's studio in 1986. As I understand his response from others on my committee, Professor Robert Grilley was not thrilled with the efforts at the time of my exam. 25 years later, maybe I better understand his reservation. I could have improved the drawing (perspective) and clarified design relationships.
After painting in oils for many years I switched to acrylics in 2004. Because this painting was done in oil, I've retrieved my oils and reacquainted myself with the medium. Here are several things the experience of going back to oils has reminded me:
1. All other things being equal, a change in medium requires a change in technique.
2. The drying time of acrylic affords me quicker changes; the buttery quality of oil allows me to cover real estate faster.
3. Oil painting is not conducive to a small, basement studio. (Although I discovered that Simply Green helps with clean up.)
Borges and Jarrett
Yesterday, while working on the underpainting for a new image—a task laborious and meditative, I listened to Keith Jarrett's Bye Bye Blackbird (2000 ECM.) I had picked it up as a used copy several years ago, not because of Jarrett or his trio's tribute to Miles Davis, but because "Bye Bye Blackbird" is a favorite standard. This CD has grown on me, a personal appreciation that required more time than usual.
Are there similarities between Jorge Luis Borges and Jarrett? Do they share a similar regard for the usefulness of tradition? Do both of them treat ideas as the very stuff of their art, as intellectual possibilities presented within narratives? Are both of them comfortable with paradoxes of space? Where Borges placed emphasis on perfect plots, does Jarrett return to perfect melodies? Would both agree with Thelonious Monk that it's the inside of a thing that makes the outside good?
Geoff Dyer playlist
Working through a good collection of Dyer's writing (Otherwise Known as the Human Condition), I intently read his essay, "Is Jazz Dead?" Although many American readers may not agree with his conclusions on the subject, along the way he shares interesting examples.
. . . which calls to mind the easy advantage of sampling jazz in iTunes format. Sampling and buying one tune at a time—this is often the way I assemble a playlist, organizing the group entirely around someone else's critical judgments. My playlist from Dyer's essay includes artists I was not familiar with, such as Rabih Abou-Khalil, Anouar Brahem, and Nils Petter Molvaer. The playlist also includes familiar artists such as Don Cherry and Keith Jarrett, both of whom were well-represented in my existing collection but not for reasons Dyer finds them crucially important.
Borges and his reader's reader
Re Borges' theoretical fiction: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
In her splendid study (1993) of Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine cultural critic Beatriz Sarlo examined and uncovered Borges' important position as a thinker on the edge of things. Among the works discussed is an early short story in the form of review, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, which provides necessary details about a fictitious writer's (Menard) efforts to rewrite an exact copy of Cervantes' original masterwork. Ultimately, Menard does not come close to completing his copy, having finished only identical fragments—two chapters and parts of a third. Still, the reviewer finds Menard's Quixote to be "more subtle" and "infinitely richer" than Cervantes' original. In Menard's passages the reviewer recognizes Menard's style and something of his voice and credits Menard with having enriched "the halting and rudimentary art of reading." What Borges has achieved in this economically dense fiction is to call into question assumptions about identity, authorship, and originality. I recommend Pierre Menard for this achievement and also for its demonstration of Borges' dry humor and effortless use of the perfect detail.
Gorey's winners and losers
In a 1994 interview with Clifford Ross, illustrator Edward Gorey (1925-2000) picked winners and losers from the history of art and illustration.
Among the winners: Francis Bacon, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Francisco Goya, Albert York, Max Ernst, Edward Ardizzone, and Balthus.
Losers include Pablo Picasso ("And Picasso I detest more than I can tell you.") and Edouard Manet ("I'd like to think that it was Manet who really wrecked painting forever.")
Whether or not you like Gorey's body of work, the interview makes for an interesting read, in The World of Edward Gorey, Abrams, 2008.