On Craftsmanship… and walking the Camino de Santiago

There is a difference between good technique and good craft, or craftsmanship. Technique is the style in which an artist attempts to realize the concept. It is merely a part of the craft and not the same thing. There are some highly skilled artists who are seduced by their own bravado and rely too much on their developed level of technique to carry the work. As a result, the objects become more representations of the artists’ admiration of their own abilities and the piece becomes stale and lifeless. Good craftsmanship is not realized. On the opposite side, there are plenty of artists who see good technique as taboo. Often because they have not been able to develop their own technique adequately enough for various reasons, and the skilled technique of another can certainly be threatening. As a result they shun technique and rely on irony and camp to carry their ideas- a witty sense of humor then replaces the need to develop technique. It becomes a matter of convenience. (Technique is not just the ability to render representationally, technique is any means one chooses to best achieve his or her desired product. Jackson Pollock had as much of a technique as Velazquez did. Which artist utilized his technique best within his craft is up for debate.)  Perhaps the main and most unfortunate reason that quality technique is abandoned and therefor good craftsmanship is not realized, is our own competitive commercial market. An architect in New York, competing with other architects to build an apartment complex, no doubt seeks the cheapest materials and labor to keep the cost low and stay competitive. In the name of efficiency, the best materials are not used and an adequate amount of time and labor is not invested to see the project thoroughly through. And so, the building leaks in a rainstorm or the mice find their way in through the seams. And now the owner must pay extra, in the long run, because shortcuts were made in the beginning, simply because the architect needed to keep costs low to beat out his or her competition if he or she is to survive in our commercial market. Enough about technique.

Good craftsmanship is exercised when an artist thoroughly conceives an idea, exhausts all options as to how best to translate that idea into substance (the substance being the final product: a painting, performance, building, etc.). The artist spends as much time as is required to get to know the material, to explore all options as to how the pieces of the idea come together upon realization. (That is where technique comes in.) And when the seams don’t quite fit, the artist is willing to start over, to comprehend what went wrong, what went right and to begin again, and again, and again as many times as is needed until the idea takes form, organically, through trial and error in a seamless fashion. When it is clear that a painter has thought through his or her execution, that the artist struggled and strove to find the best possible answers to solving such a complex problem as how to create a good work of art, that he or she dedicated as much time, energy and thoughtfulness, thoughtfulness above all, as was needed- the painting exists as a single entity. The colors, the mediums, the linen or cotton, the size, the width of the support structure, all elements come together harmoniously and create a solid, independent object of beauty (Beauty not in the taboo sense of the word, but beauty that can exist in the horrific or ugly as much as in the pleasurable.) that does not rely on the artist, art dealer, critic or literature to carry its weight. This is good craftsmanship. This rarely happens, but when it does, it’s incredibly powerful and it moves the viewer on a deep but simple level of the viewer’s subconscious that can not be described by words.

Below are a few examples of work that I believe have achieved that level of craftsmanship.

Michelangelo's Pieta

John Constable, oil on canvas

Quaker chair- the Quakers are known for their excellent craftsmanship

Lucian Freud, Benefit's Supervisor, oil on canvas

"Wet" by Hendrik Kerstens, print

Pantheon, Rome

Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul

On walking the Camino-

I recently came back from walking the Camino de Santiago with my brother. The Camino de Santiago is a European Union Cultural Landmark which involves trekking across Spain. There are several different paths one can take, however the Camino Frances, is the most popular and believed to be the path taken by St. James as he walked across Europe to preach Christianity. The destination of the Camino is Santiago de Compostella in Galicia, believed to be the resting place for the bones (minus his head) of St. James, the apostle. According to Christian legend, the eleven apostles (Judas, the twelfth, having hung himself, of course) dispersed across the known world after the execution and resurrection of Jesus to preach His Word and spread Christianity. St. James, one of the grumpier of the eleven apostles, made it as far as Galicia in modern day Spain, but was ultimately not very popular with the locals and so headed back to Judea where he was beheaded by King Herod Agrippa I in 44 AD becoming the first martyr of Christianity. (Christianity wouldn’t become the official religion of the Roman Empire until after the Emperor Constantine converted nearly three hundred years later.) From here it gets a bit hazy, there are several stories as to how the the headless corpse of St. James found its way back to Galicia. “A beautiful legend was elaborated, telling how the body of St James was returned to Galicia after his death, ‘by a raft with neither sail nor rudder’. The arrival was followed by a series of fantastic adventures : the followers who had accompanied James asked a heathen queen, Luparia, to bury the body of the Apostle in her lands. She refused and the unfortunates fled, pursued by the royal troops who, conveniently, died by drowning, thanks to the collapse of a bridge. Then Luparia tried wild oxen guarded by a dragon. They killed the dragon and tamed the oxen, upon which Luparia converted, and finally allowed the burial in a place which was soon forgotten.” (www.saint-jacques.info) The remains were not discovered until sometime in the 9^th century by a hermit. The reigning Pope was quick to declare the bones as being those of St. James. Though, realistically, there was no way to be certain. Since then, the bones have been hidden countless times from various invaders and were even lost at one point for a period of time, commencing the decline of the pilgrimage to Santiago. In 1884, bones were yet again recovered and, once again, the reigning Pope was quick to identify them as the relic of St. James- though, today, apparently the Vatican acknowledges the uncertainty of the declaration.

In any case, by the 1100’s, the Camino de Santiago had become one of the three most popular Christian pilgrimages and at one time even surpassing that of the Vatican in Rome and Jerusalem in popularity. Today, the Camino sees over 100,000 pilgrims each year (though many take modern day transportation to Sarria, only 100 kilometers away from Santiago and begin their pilgrimage there.) My bother and I began our walk in Roncesvalles, 750 kilometers away from Santiago. Many of the towns along the way have managed to maintain their medieval presence in the form of the architecture and religious art even when their inhabiters have no doubt changed with the times like the rest of us. The pilgrims that pass through every year have equally changed. Whereas before, people trekked thousands of kilometers in the name of Christianity, many pilgrims today, my brother and myself included, do so in the name of vacation. And I don’t mean this as a belittling reason. Religion aside, the experience of walking across Spain, climbing over mountain ranges and gently rolling hills covered in vineyards and wheat, descending valleys and exploring medieval villages and castles perched on hilltops, hearing tales of knights and invading Muslim armies, and some of the most beautiful landscapes you will ever see- this is enlightening enough for any modern day pilgrim. The pace at which you cross through Spain, a slow and steady walk, allows you to thoroughly absorb the vast layers of cultural history, accrued from the various ruling peoples from pagans to Christians to Muslims and again to Christians and is of great contrast to the speed and busyness of modern day life. (There are also plenty of examples of excellent craftsmanship from the Middle Ages to the Baroque along the way.)

In addition to a daily journal, I painted one watercolor a day, at the end of the day, of something in my new environment, as more of a record than of self-expression. Below are a few examples.

Day 1

Day 9

Day 10

Day 12

Day 13- Scallop shell with the Cross of the Order of Santiago

Day 14

Day 15- where we stayed for the night.

Day 16, my brother, after walking 40 kilometers in a day.

Day 17

Day 18

Day 20- old, Galician oak tree

Day 23, Santiago Cathedral, south facade.

Self Portrait in Winter Hat

Self Portrait in Winter Hat

Last week I began and completed, Self Portrait in Winter Hat, and I believe it comes very close to what I have been after. (Two days vs. nine months (Coup d’Etat)) There are moments of complete, flat abstraction and moments that tend towards volumetric representation. The paint both references itself as the medium, the physical characteristics of oil paint, and at the same time comes together to reference skin stretched over the forehead or the side plane of the hat as it wraps back towards the sky, away from the viewer. The background has turned into a flat plane of green, turned vertical, and applied thickly like butter with a palette knife. The sky creates the illusion of atmospheric depth in which clouds exist in space. But before this illusion is taken too seriously, any sort of depth is denied by the flat brushstrokes at the horizon and, especially, the red mess that exists above the head. Both of which allude to the physical flatness of mere paint on canvas.

Though I feel this painting by no means captures a viewer’s attention like Coup d’Etat or Girl with Watermelon, if I could maintain this balance of realism and abstraction, illusion and the material, in a more complex, less straightforward composition, I think I could create some pretty interesting paintings.

Let it be paint first and a representation of the subject second…

The Large Multi-figure Painting in Progress

I finished Christophe’s figure, last Saturday, on the large canvas. The painting is getting close to being completed. I have finished Derrick’s figure as well. The major elements left to be resolved are Alan’s arms and hands along with finishing touches of the body, Julie’s feet and lower legs, most of Daniel, Liliana, and spots here and there to tie it all together. When all is done, this painting will have taken me nearly a year to complete.

"Fine Thanks, And You?"

I worked on another large watermelon still life/landscape at the same time, these past few weeks. Only, in this new one, I treated it more towards the extreme end of what I have been talking about in the past blogs- in terms of more texture/impasto and more gestural brushwork. I paid attention mostly to the manner in which the paint was applied- smearing, wiping, scratching, reapplying, etc. I allowed for accident as much as possible. And in the end, I wasn’t happy. There are moments I absolutely love, the series of thick green strokes of paint that run over a vibrating pink on the upper left side of the whole watermelon. The paint is raised high above the surface of the canvas and looks like it is suspended above the pink layer beneath. I love the glazing in the sky of oranges and spots of cool greys. And I like the single piece of the fruit on the lower right side, its simple, like some sort of calligraphy, an abbreviated note that implies a chunk of watermelon.

But that’s all.

The painting as a whole, gives off a sense of impatience, generalization, and a lack of resolution. Perhaps I was a bit impatient once I saw where the painting was going. But I’m glad I did it. I pushed it to the far end of something that has intrigued me- to see what might happen. I believe its good to get carried away from time to time and ruin a painting or two. You learn a lot. Most likely, I will crop the watermelon on the left and scrap the rest, using the stretcher bars for something else.

There is something to be said about the quiet, unassuming presence of the smaller watermelon paintings. The attention to detail. Time is slowed down for a moment in these. I enjoy the slow process of analyzing the surface of the thing in front of me and breaking it down into a combination of colors, inch by square inch. One gets lost in this process and,over time, things begin to fit together, the elements in the painting begin to fall into place and there is such a wonderful feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment. Its like being three quarters of the way through a crossword puzzle. The bulk of the puzzle is finished and the words already discovered begin to inform the ones left blank, and things begin to fall into place, one word after another. Its a very satisfying feeling and its what is happening with my large, multifigure painting. It is also something that never happened with the large watermelon still life/landscape. It is as if, in order to retain the gesture and the sort of, violence, in the mark making, I was never able to get past the preliminary stage of blocking things in ( the first stage of any representational painting where the local color, the general shape and light and dark masses are first determined- a long way before any detail is considered.)

I suppose much is learned in failure. Bringing the painting to that extreme has a helped to underline what I already knew- my paintings are strongest when they have elements of both slow detail and quick, gestured strokes. Moments where one can get lost in the intricacies and detail in one place on the canvas and then come across a violent tantrum of brushstrokes in another. Its important to have variety- these elements compliment each other.

Velázquez is a painter who understood this well. In fact, he made it his signature. The faces of a portrait is done with a delicate touch, the features have been observed slowly and carefully and then in the clothing or background, right against the face, the brushstrokes dance quickly and lightly across the canvas.

detail of brushwork on Julie's leg.

I feel like I am coming close to successfully combining both paces of painting in my large, multifigure painting. Each figure is composed of slow glazes juxtaposed against opaque, wet on wet (alla prima). There is a moment, halfway up Julie’s thigh where the brushstrokes become more gestural and flatten out a bit into nothing more than paint, as it describes a transition in tone. Alan’s figure is mostly done from layers of glazes, but then moments like his left breast and, hopefully, his arms, when I complete them, have a more immediate handling of wet on wet. Christophe’s face, now that it has been reworked (I couldn’t leave it as a smear, it wasn’t fitting with the rest of the canvas) is composed of opaque detail. His hand, the one holding the melon piece, is more of an open gesture- hopefully preventing the viewer from getting stuck at the edge of the canvas. The face has taken me several hours – the hand with melon, probably 15 minutes.

Detail of Christophe's portrait.

Detail of Julie's portrait

After attending the Dumbo open studios yesterday and seeing a few paintings here and there, I realize how incredibly important it is to have faith in the medium itself, to not try to have complete control over it, otherwise you run the risk of making the image stale and stiff. Let it be paint first and a representation of the subject second.

Open Form vs Closed Form (Silhouette), Color, Light, and More Paint

I’ve been trying not to close the form. Instead, through passages of color, bring the surrounding atmosphere into the form, and visa versa. Hopefully, this does a couple of things: it remains an acknowledgment that this is indeed a painting, that I am not trying to trick the viewer into thinking that the illusion of a watermelon is the same thing as an actual watermelon in real space. I want to put absolute illusion aside and instead to try and take full advantage of the physical characteristics of this oily substance- the inherent tendency toward “accident” and disorganization. The second aspect that I hope this might accomplish is to imitate the nuances of actual vision. Forms are not closed, they are fragmented, blurred, they disappear and then reappear. The “borders” that run along a form as it turns away from the viewer fade into the darkness of a shadow, or are blurred from backlight. The cool grey patch on the side of a woman’s cheek is grey because the wall she stands against is cool grey- and there the form and the atmosphere merge into one. This is open form.
Looking at a white wall, really looking at it, one will notice the vibrations of light creating atmosphere. We see, in a sense, the same way we hear- through vibrations. And these vibrations of light allow us to see color which comes together to form the white wall in front of us. The white wall is really composed of lights and darks, cools and warms, reds, blues, and yellows, and our brain organizes these variations into a solid, white wall. A painter knows this, if only subconsciously, by hours spent in the studio, looking at life and mimicking it through paint. What’s interesting about a photograph is it has already done what our brain does. It has merged all of the variation of that wall together, and instead of hundreds of tints of light and variety of colors (as can be seen in life) the photograph replicates the wall with a much more limited range. And to paint from that photograph, you are in a sense making a condensed, limited version of a condensed, limited version. A lot of artists use photographs and there is nothing wrong with this as long as the artist is aware of the limits of the photograph. If that artist has spent hours painting from the real world, he or she can easily make up in the painting for what the photograph lacks, by adding nuances of temperature, color, value and tone (if, of course, the nuances is important to the painting). Jenny Saville is a case in point. I am only now, trying to bring this out in my painting- the vibrations of different color, mimicking atmosphere, opening up the figure to the environment around it.
On silhouettes- One of my favorite professors once said that a closed form is inherently better than an open form due to the fact that when we walk away from a painting, we are left with nothing but our memory. And over time, even the memory fades, and what remains is the most basic representation of that painting- in a sense- the symbol, the silhouette. The earliest forms depicted by man of the objects around us are in silhouette (e.g. Lascaux cave paintings). And so, depicting your subject in closed form to give it an absolute, distinct silhouette, is the best way to leave an impression deep inside the viewer’s memory. The silhouette becomes a symbol and we are hardwired to connect with symbols at the most basic level of consciousness.

Ingres and Davíd were masters of the closed form.  My memory of their paintings brings to mind beautiful, sometimes extraordinary silhouettes. But I’m not entirely sure that the silhouette taking on the form of the symbol and therefore potentially being easier to recall is a sound argument for suggesting that the closed form is the superior way to depict form. Of course, first it depends on what the artist is trying to convey. If the artist wants to convey a memory, he or she might blur “boundries” of the form, those moments when the form meets the atmosphere. Thereby opening the figure. This gives the impression of a faded image- faded in memory, as in many of Gerhard Richter’s paintings.  When I think of Lucian Freud, I think of streams of colors, flowing over the volumes, and between crevasses, converging in pools and collecting in mounds. When I think of Saville, I think of patches of colors that slam into each other and bounce off one another, describing the forms along their trajectory. When I think of John Currin, I think of thin films of paint, economically placed and having been delicately dragged over the top of the linen, leaving moment where one can peer straight down into the weave. Rembrandt- dabs and pools of colored grease that appear from the shadows and collect in the light.

In my memory, when I pull away from the canvas, and my nose is no longer firmly planted in the oil paint, I can make out the subjects. I am at the MET staring at the backside of Leigh Bowery, or at the Gagosian, facing the underbelly of a giant sleeping or slaughtered pig. The dabs and pools of grease come together to form Rembrandt’s signature bulbous nose. I can just make out the subjects, but the silhouettes are vague. Instead, at least for me, it is the feeling that I am left with, or the memory of that feeling. And that feeling is sometimes best evoked by the physicality of the paint.

James Elkins- WHAT PAINTING IS- some passages

Besides the occasional couple of hours here and there, its been several days since I’ve been able to get into studio and really hunker down. I’ve been getting rather anxious. I’ll try to get up early so that I can at least get four hours in tomorrow before I have to work. Carlo Pittore said with absolute conviction that the goal is to paint six hours a day, six days a week, and rest on the seventh. Biblical.

I have included some passages from James Elkins’ book What Painting Is- one of my favorite books on the act of painting.

“Pictures can have many meanings of those kinds, and art history is a rich and complex field. But a painting is a painting, and not words describing the artist or the place it was made or the people who commissioned it. A painting is made of paint- of fluids and stone- and paint has its own logic, and its own meanings even before it is shaped into the head of a Madonna. To an artist, a picture is both the sum of ideas and a blurry memory of “pushing paint,” breathing fumes, dripping oils and wiping brushes, smearing and diluting and mixing. Bleary preverbal thoughts are intermixed with the namable concepts, figures and forms that are being represented. The material memories are not usually part of what is said about a picture, and that is a fault in interpretation because every painting captures a certain resistance of paint, a prodding gesture of the brush, a speed and insistence in the face of mindless matter: and it does so at the same moment, and in the same thought, as it captures the expression of a face.” Pages 2-3 James Elkins, What Painting Is

“To a painter, it is the life’s blood: a substance so utterly entrancing, infuriating, and ravishingly beautiful that it makes it worthwhile to go back into the studio every morning, year after year, for an entire lifetime. As the decades go by, a painter’s life becomes a life lived with oil paint, a story told in the thickness of oil. Any history of painting that does not take that obsession seriously is incomplete… Paint records the most delicate gesture and the most tense…Paint is a cast made of the painter’s movements, a portrait of the painter’s body and thoughts. The muddy moods of oil paints are the painter’s muddy humors, and its brilliant transformations are the painter’s unexpected discoveries. Painting is an unspoken and largely uncognized dialogue, where paint speaks silently in the masses and colors and the artist responds in moods. All those meanings are intact in the paintings that hang in museums: they preserve the memory of the tired bodies that made them, the quick jabs, the exhausted truces, the careful nourishing gestures.” Page 5 James Elkins, What Painting Is

I have more passages from the book, but if I am really going to get to studio early tomorrow, it is going to have to wait.
The following images are paintings that are currently being exhibited at The Phillips Collection in DC in the show- Paint Made Flesh.

Jenny Saville/ Phillip Guston/ John Currin/ Lucian Freud

Christophe-more

Today I worked on Christophe’s torso without him in front of me. This is a new thing- working without the model to reference. It seems to allow for more freedom of expression, room to experiment- however, I’m afraid I am also missing a lot of nuances that exist in reality- the dimples of flesh, the correct combination of temperatures of color as the surface of the form moves toward and away from you (me).

I’m trying to find that balance I was talking about in the last entry of this blog. The balance between quiet moments of detail and yes, nuance with more violent moments of color and brushwork. In the quiet, detailed moments, there can be a sense of translucent skin achieved, almost as if you can see the web of blood vessels underneath the first layer of paint which is created by a combination of scumbling and glazing layer over layer over layer. This works mostly, i think, on areas of large mass- like the thighs. However the more impasto areas, area of broken forms like the face, hands and feet- i feel are moments ripe for the more “violent” handling. Thicker paint, agitated brushwork, patchwork of color- all of these seem to come together to create the human flesh in a different way- as if, topographically describing the surface. As if painting a thick layer of colored frosting on the surface of the skin. Below is a painting I did yesterday which shows what I mean by this.

This large painting (the multi-figured with Christophe) presents a vast number of problems that I hope, by addressing each one of them as they come, will turn into opportunities. Its important that I treat the surface of this canvas as organic and intrinsic as possible- to build from the inside, out, and to allow for mistakes to be made. To be willing to throw paint on one day, and wipe it all off the next.