journal | extracts (1993–2023)
09.2021
how i work reflects my understanding of the world, but how i paint
resembles methods some archaeologists use to excavate prehistoric
mounds. my paintings are by-products of very slow processes. they locate
form inside an accretion of material gestures that are sometimes colorful
and sometimes violent. Gestures pile up on each other as sediments do
on the banks of meandering rivers. as they deepen, they are selectively
altered and sometimes destroyed through various mechanical or chemical
means (e.g., abrasion, scratching, scoring). this stratigraphy of damage
accumulates until I determine that work on the work is over.
because time is a process, the time spent making my work is part of
the work. i don't, however, view my work as ever being fully resolved
or “finished”. my challenge is, and always has been, to know when to stop
working—to end the dig—and move on.
04.2020
the
ruptured quotidian:
is it here, at the far end of the cul-de-sac?
or, is it there, folded
above the far end of the cul-de-sac
like bone and carbon?
...
aiesthesis:
an unelaborated, elementary awareness of stimuation,
i.e., a sensation of touch
the bare ground upon which a sense of place accumulates
fossils as recall or intermittent reports from the field
02.2020
the molecular anxieties of the times
the noise that broke the first silence
our desire to organize it as a means to end it
...
i operate inside a stratigraphy of damage, working until I eventually arrive
at what i see or recognize as a reckoning and reminder:
that only some things have authors
that significant work remains unfinished
if it is to exist past itself, unmediated
beyond interpretation
01.2020
"we be made of many colors,
but our shadows fall in one."
—lee "scratch" perry, musician & music producer
...
a shimmering decade—
dappled green-gold
in bluest black
shade of passing clouds
10.10.2019
he left us today—
first snowfall
07.2019
acts of man and nature snap limbs off trees
it is perhaps the work of the artist
to understand and reverse the violence—
and, beneath ruined skies,
finish them again
03.2019
involvements in a push-pull encompassing perception, seeing, looking,
understanding, making, presenting, and accepting form and space as
conduits for unique and peculiar manipulations i find satisfying, worth-
while and (occasionally) significant
12.2018
artists who approach materials conventionally
often do not understand where their materials
could lead them
engagement with the potential of raw materials
makes a case for the material plane of existence
04.2018
what was once a passage is now the entire work
12.2016 > 05.2018
contraction > minimization > loss
upheaval > relocation/redistribution
(infinite) resignation > examination
assessment > reassessment
de-accession > grief/mourning
disillusionment > reillusionment
affirmation > reaffirmation
simplification > austerity
(godless) recovery > calm
10.2016
i am reminded that i've never met a truly selfless person
...
this morning i walked past a place that was to be, two minutes later,
the site of the worst gas explosion this city has seen in 30 years
one primary blast, one secondary blast, and several reverberating echoes
suddenly, and for just an instant, all the windows in the surrounding
buildings were distorted and reflected something else
09.2016
fragility and instability—
a miasmic intimism
...
fusing some of the more durable aspects of drawing, painting, photography,
and printmaking within a conceptual frame that enmeshes retinal and non-
retinal realities, i add sublimated gesture and the transformative agency of
heat to the optics of my work as it stakes its claim and makes its case for
the material plane of human existence
...
evidence of the hand
in a damaged stratigraphy of accretion of commitment
and redaction
07.2016
consider the focal length of heat
and its signature
05.2016
trees sway overhead—
through a comb of wind
the listener listens,
listening
03.2016
it is less about composing or constructing pleasing, plausible spaces
than it is generating and distributing a full spectrum of shadows lent
by fugitive forms
01.2016
what would happen to poverty if we miniaturized ambition?
what impact would it have on art and artists?
12.2015
today i read a book and, for the entire time i was reading,
none of the characters in the book were online or on the phone
they were doing things i felt were (and knew to be) far more interesting
than what we're all seem to be doing at this exact moment
10.2015
the radix of communication is the invention of the campfire—
the extension of day into night
and the development and cultural
transmission of language
09.2015
the ark stood firm on ararat; th’ returning sun
exhaled earth’s humid bubbles, and emulous of light,
reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise
hope’s harbinger, ephemeral as the summer fly
which rises, flits, expands and dies
—j.m.w. turner, the fallacies of hope
...
the wind has shores as does the sea—
do not worry about the direction it takes
aftermath is prelude
...
each convincing image is flanked by less convincing others
we are confident in the behavior of objects
do not overlook the value of unconvincing glimpses
for they too point to and from unknown, unfamiliar places
...
in the gloaming,
the solitary walker stumbles—
alone and nameless
nostalgic for a million different futures
...
the transformative nature of art is never revealed in idle arrays of the artist’s
tools, nor the shelves of stored materials
the wild alchemy of the mad artist-scientist in his laboratory is a fabrication
of the consumer, but may, when useful, be conjured by the artist when it is
in his or her best interest to do so
08.2015
one no longer chooses isolation—it is manifest
consider how this changes the landscape
how one sees paintings or any other local manifestation of the hand
...
not colors, but indications of invisible chemical agency
...
fabrication is the literal manufacture of a thing as well as its falsification
05.2015
i have been listening (and this is what it said):
nothing changes except that which has to.
...
on/after twombly:
the culture of superficiality (surface) and the ontology of depth
(in deception or illusion)
the vexation of painted sculpture, eliminated in painting with stain
the memorial voice of scupture
and the slapdash rime of white paint
...
ambiguity cannot rationalize chaos for the inexpert
03.2015
the running length of a meandering river shares a similar proportionality
to the distance from its start and end points as a circle's circumference
does to its diameter (pi).
no grand plan unearthed. simply a beautiful appearance of consistency
in reality manifest.
...
the architectural equivalent of italicized text
02.2015
scud the glitter—
check abash, undo.
...
"...humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
—Blaise Pascal, Pensees
10.2014
under a ruined sky
the darkened world thrashes and pauses—
a turbid interregnum amid prospects of light
...
cautious regard(ing) > watching cannot locate things
...
when is it a painting?
when there's nothing left to do
...
intentionality deflected by a kind of planlessness
the work comes forth—on its own; in its own terms
...
paintings are assertions that suffer no company.
...
resign from the cult of personality.
dispense with the traps of expertise.
find open ground on which to stand.
then state your case.
08.2014
exclusion in inclusion—
a new class of digital provincials has emerged.
07.2014
"i have returned to the crash site several times. there is a field of sunflowers
where rescue workers found headphones, laptops and some of the dead on
the first night. sometimes, or maybe always, the flowers all face the same
direction. ...it is as if they want to tell me something."
—mauricio lima, reporting for The New York Times on the day ukrainian
separatists unexpectedly blocked access to the crash site of malaysian
airlines flight 17, thwarting recovery efforts protected by agreements
made with the malaysian government (july 27, 2014).
05.2014
after a false start, i vacated the disjecta studio. it was a beautiful day.
04.2014
nothing external validates this.
02.2014
pacto de olvido
there is a delicate perceptual ecology in operation. its outward
expression, nearly always mediated by cultural norms, helps us function
with a sense of purpose in what we are told is a wild, fully malleable
world. indeterminacy or fear of the wild has throughout history fueled
the construction of empirical and metaphysical belief systems, each
intended to methodically reduce, tame
or eliminate it.
the practical failures of these systems continue to fascinate me.
in the information age—at a time when so many individuals eagerly
self-sacrifice to the whims and eros of virtual communities—i query :
is it still possible for art as we know it to suggest or convey how reality,
illusion (and failed illusion) menace or serve the soul?
how do historic artistic traditions such as luminism or the picturesque
movement affect studio and post-studio practices informed by the myriad
cultural reverberations of post-War trauma and the effects of turning
the
fragmented mirrors of postmodernism on ourselves?
work locates form
my recent work locates form inside a stratigraphy of damage—
a narrow, imperfect space of accretion and destruction.
the ruined sky paintings are material metaphors for the irresolute unfamiliar—
a threnody for the mounting losses of a highly illusioned world.
10.2013
a dappled path moves through darkness and light
overhead sails the ruined sky—
new clouds for the empty messiah
09.2013
to the extent a plow is a comb,
so, too, the arc of inquiry
is a painter's path.
...
a troubling trap is a hinge for liberation—
by operating in proximity with illusion, we formulate manifestos
tying our efforts to human history and other convulsions.
06.2013
irony is a single fold
irony is lost on the ironic
...
better to stumble over rough ground from which all else falls away
than accept (suffer) the grandiloquence of those who claim their way
is peerless and new—a slick avenue encumbered by blind motivation,
empty connoisseurship and the bland privilege careerism affords.
05.2013
the sun does not rise to make a point.
02.2013
i would have sent a postcard from there had i known where "there" was.
01.2013 (revised 08.2013)
no one questions the reality of virtual space to those invested in it.
it's the loss of quality, i.e., the loss of resolution, suffered in uncritical
digital abandon
that deserves our full consideration.
we all know passengers in slow- and fast-moving trains recall different
journeys. both remember perfectly, but it is inside and among qualitative
and quantitative differences that ambiguity makes itself at home.
these are fresh manifestations of an old and familiar relativism—
an ignorance of still another flavor.
11.2012
"any production of the mind is important
when its existence resolves, summons up
or cancels other works, whether previous
to it or not."
—paul valery, french poet/essayist (1871–1945)
...
"min is the ruine of the highe hales,
the falling of the towers and the walles."
—geoffrey chaucer, english poet (1343–1400)
...
what one does with one's hands—what is handmade—
can be seen as a kind of honorific; a gratitude expressed
for having had a past, regardless of whether memory and longing
embrace it or joyous and willful purposefulness
dispense with it.
...
cultural bankruptcy is not the empty wallets
of those who attend art openings and fail to buy
09.2012
the best art is still—a local object
...
what i grant is this—these are places
places as context for locating form (and the work)
in the possibility, but improbability, of arriving.
...
"it's a place that promises future conditions
of this same condition, a future particularity
of this indecision, this hovering. in a word,
it promises future creation.
that's the only place it can be."
—philip guston, american painter, in conversation with harold rosenberg (1965)
05.2012
the new paintings were made during a protracted detour through
a creative cul-de-sac; an unexpected place beyond whose borders
the horizon has gone missing and stone-filled winds ruin the sky.
they are autobiographical as any work bearing evidence of the artist's
hand is, but these works are autobiographical, too, to the extent they
register a complaint and render in material terms the extent to which
I mourn the mounting losses of the world.
brutal and lyrical; cathartic in effect, the paintings conjure simple
associations with the terrible power of storms in order to suggest
as well the reflective calm that often precedes and follows them.
as metaphoric object-images, they make a case for the physical plane.
as art, they are the jungle and the stars; an exploration of the delicate
ecology of illusion, disillusionment and reillusionment.
04.2012
above the broken observatory
nothing placates the ruined sky
nor prowls the night
a dark portal frames and intensifies the view
soon, a glint : irradiant, illumes
02.2012
we have illusions because ignorance is necessary for survival
we become disillusioned as we learn about ourselves and the world
we seek reillusionment when we believe we have learned enough
10.2011
the path to the garden shines like rain—
a thick wall of stone and tile (positioned diagonally)
divides the beautiful garden and the morning
steel bars fill its four window-like openings
blocking the path but framing the view
of the other side
07.2011 (revised 02.12)
the mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.
—plutarch, greek philosopher
if teaching is possible, this is how it is done
if learning is possible, this is how it is done
...
consider the subversive potential of the unexpressed
a traditional landscape is as potent a creative dislocation
as ten tons of chocolate presented on a pedestal
...
be not offended by tonight's mess of stars
06.2011
this is not the weather of the world.
when one compares the finger pointing of 11th century tombstones
with the smash-and-scatteration of contemporary post-studio art practice,
it is apparent to me (as I imagine it must be to most cultural observers)
that creative progress (or the climate of creative progress) is a careerist
illusion measured not
by monuments but, rather, by the weather it creates.
...
the place beneath this place
stood here long before
we looked skyward
and then home
nothing comes back—
behind the mirror (and before it)
all reflection is imperfect
to glimpse the sublime,
must one stand in the midst of ruins?
04.2011
size as the birthplace of spectacle
scale as within the purview of the sublime
01.2011
art is a perfect mirror of broken things
12.2010
we terrorize ourselves
in leakages of redacted reality
in seeking, one seeks the sublime—
fearlessly, eyes open
09.2010
stressing the importance of
finding one's voice precludes the prospects
for silence in the twin discoveries of what can and cannot be said.
(overheard at the gallery opening)
"i have misplaced my discomfort and believe it can be found
somewhere in this room."
meaninglessness consists not in the rupture of meaning, but in
its utter absence. the willful, fractured chaos of postmodernism
is a failure in this understanding.
...as if meaning resides in the particular (particulate).
08.2010
the granular assertions of smash and scatteration, two dominant
models for post-studio artistic practice and object making, are less
clever revisionist strategies than redundant modes of formalism,
automatism and expressionism; an uncritical accumulation of
the unassimilated—blunt objects fueled by irony, illuminating nothing.
...
i continue my search for inspired misreadings
and the possibility of happy accidents.
07.2010
dismantling the discontinuous makes alchemy possible again.
06.2010
private experience informs creative action.
if its artifacts do not embody or enrich experience,
nothing is delivered.
11.2009
"a man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover,
through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple
images in whose presence his heart first opened."
—albert camus, french author and philosopher
06.2008
the new paintings speak from an empathetic place at a time when
even the simplest signals confuse and the bees have lost their way.
03.2006
the ecology of form is delicate, seductive and uncertain.
drawing shapes the investigation and approximates the findings.
forsaking intentional structures, the vista of possibility opens.
12.2005
abstraction thrives in a contingency of reference.
lacking reference, one approximates. blind, shy of intent.
06.2005 (revised 06.2008)
peripheral vision is acute and under-exercised. have you ever tried
to resolve details in the night sky and discovered that elusive stars
come forward with unexpected clarity when you divert attention
to the periphery? i am interested in assembling visual metaphors
for this and other kinds of "disinterestedness". i am unconcerned
with mimesis, the cult of personality and overt displays of technical
prowess. i work to better understand the relationships between
the seen and the unseen.
i must be vigilant. there are traps of expertise even for the blind
and disinterested.
04.2005
one thing leads to another and its reconciliation is form.
07.2003 (revised 09.2006)
the process of illumination is a subject in my work. through it,
all things are created or destroyed.
04.2000 (revised 06.2008)
"thought is only a flash between two long nights,
but this flash is everything."
—henri poincare, french mathematician
my work hybridizes the paradigms of drawing, painting, photography
and, to a lesser extent, sculpture.
this is the space of not quite knowing, where rule and consensus
merge with the poetics of doubt. here, yes is no and absolute silence
is radically beautiful.
the actinism of light (i.e., its ability to trigger chemical reactions)
is an apt metaphor for the expression of thought. though central to
the development of photography, photoactinism has rarely been
exploited as means and end. the photogenic drawings of anna atkins
(1799-1871) and the photograms of laszlo moholy-nagy (1895-1946)
and man ray (1890-1976) were overwhelmed by the aesthetic or
sociopolitical aspirations of the day and are difficult to see as direct
expressions of basic intellectual curiosity.
the leaf, not the presence or absence of shadows, was the subject
of this work.
04.1999
i'm not concerned with the delivery or suppression of content. because
this is so, my work may be seen as a critique of the postmodern spectacle.
by neither locating nor prescribing meaning, the work speaks but fails
to explain itself.
05.1998
the secret life of objects must include the possibility of nothing being
there at all.
09.1997 (revised 07.2008)
what is is. and what is remains to be seen—in the gazeless gaze
and focused frame of the observer observing.
11.1996
photo-actinism lends shape to processes and conditions lacking
retinal reality. it suggests the existence of another, fugitive world;
one in which intuition is the organizing apparatus and uncertainty
is the constant.
06.1996
the creative act is nonlinear—born in clarity, extended through approximation.
09.1993
the overall shape of choices made is a life and life is occasionally art.