To create is only to reveal what essentially is. It is the vivid recollection of the as-yet-unknown in the known. ~ Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological MandalaNothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things. ~ Georgia O'Keefe, The Poetry of Things
Unlike Georgia O'Keefe, my own still life drawings are filled with detail. Life is in the details. Details can be infinitely small, often go unnoticed and are over-looked, which is something I care about in relation to objects and to people.
My current series of nature drawings were created with the hard line of pencils, pastels and occasionally with watercolors (when I'm around water). I often choose subjects so filled with minute detail that they become a thing of abstraction. Details are confusing, which is my intention. I appreciate and value the ambiguity, metaphor and poetry that accompanies abstraction. My large paintings are also abstract, but without a lot of detail which acts as a sort of counter balance to the hyper realism of my nature drawings.
Elimination and editing is key, as it is in life. By releasing detail from my paintings I can focus on the essentials which are often spiritual and symbolic. There are hard choices to be made and discipline to be followed (not a popular concept I realize) in the building of a structure and a firm foundation for a life in art.
The drawings in this post and on my art website capture my wild surroundings in the Southern California inland desert valleys, but so too does "My My My Precious Love" pictured at the top, but in a different way. I am at a time and a place in my life (my mid forties) where abstraction calls to me louder than anything else.
The artist must be blind to the distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age. He must watch only the trend of the inner need and harken to it's words alone.
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published 1911.
P.S. Select drawings are now available for purchase on my website on a private page. To view these drawings please email me for the password.
