More on "Recent Work"

In writing and posting "Recent Work”, I meant to try and explain my engagement in the process of painting. I realized that I left some ideas and issues out of this writing when I talked to a friend about it.

I’ll cut to the chase, as I need to recount details-anything forgotten and relevant is sure to come up in future posts. Besides I don't want to bore the hell out of you.
Here’s what I want to talk about: I am trying to get to (or is it revert to?) a state of naivete when painting. To work on emptying my mind preparatory to making a painting. The benefit? To try and (temporarily) rid as many of the devices, tricks and crutches that I might call on to “help” me out while working on a canvas. Facing the blank canvas is a bit like being in the boxing ring: nothing to do with heroics -what you face in the ring is nothingness. Relying on abilities that come so naturally to me in my sculptural work simply doesn’t work. In this engagement, there is no known language used. There is no up, down, sideways because I haven't invented it yet. I have chosen to work abstractly (although it's damn near impossible to not imply certain realisms) and each applied stroke builds a world and gives the following one reference. The vacuous area of white (canvas) slowly takes on form and meaning of sorts. By self reference on top of self reference, a situation (or microcosm) builds. (Interestingly, I personally don’t think that the process can be reversed. Once paint is applied, whiting over the canvas just creates hidden history.) So what grounds this inchoate bunch of strokes to New Jersey/to reality and how great of a concern should this be? In creating these increasingly complex forms, when does orientation to the picture plane become an issue? Could it be as simple as where the painter stands relative to his horizon as the work is done or is this issue moot?At what point in time, in putting down stroke upon stroke, does the paint take on meaning? Of course, we need to know (or not) what is meant by meaning. Meaning can be personally assigned, like orientation, to some degree. Painting that represents that which we know carries meaning through our experience of that which is represented. Okay, I'm going to stop this because I seem to have more questions than answers. I’ll try and make my point. It's hard to paint. I work myself into a state where I can put down color and use a brush. But then it gets harder: the urge to make the painting relevant creeps into the act. Why? Possibly so that I can relate back to this work after having left the "zone" in which it was created. Maybe to give it significance to others-so it can stand in the "real" world by itself without explanation. There is an urge in me that something tangible (meaning marketable?) needs to be shown-perhaps this is my ego bristling-this seems to be hard-wired in me. As a product of practical blue-collar upbringing, I was taught that yer head should be in the clouds only to pick the best apple on the tree.It would be easier to paint representationally. A lot less doubt and certainly fewer questions.
I give a lot of credit to those who have gone before me, working abstractly and putting themselves squarely in the ring. Standing in front of that canvas can invite madness. Or a lot of anxiety. I’ll continue on with painting (You must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on). I fully admit to not knowing what I’m doing. Although unsettling, this not knowing is actually a good thing. It inspires new ideas and makes me sweat. If you need to see me more self-assured, more developed, than you can look at my sculpture.
But with painting, I intend to do some serious bad work. And grow, I hope. If nothing else, I’ll be asking some interesting questions.