Here's some of what I've been reading lately: Rackstraw Downes' "Turning the Head in Empirical Space" an essay in Rackstraw Downes, Sanford Sanchez, et al. and Under the Gowanus and Razor-wire Journal, the journal Downes kept while making these paintings. Part of the pleasure of reading the journal comes from the fact that the paintings he made under the Gowanus expressway are of an intersection that I passed through on my way to and from work for fourteen years. The major part of the pleasure is of learning of the hours and hours he put into the making of these paintings during some of the hottest days of the year in a place so packed with traffic that on some days he wore a mask to limit the amount of fumes he was inhaling. He would often feel discouraged, uncertain whether he was persisting in a task that might end up not satisfying him at all.
Why would that please me? Well, I feel the same way with a lot less at stake. The simple drawings I make seem to me neither accomplished or even particularly interesting, and yet they also represent a triumph and I feel that if I persist, I will do better. And some parts may even possibly become easier. Although when I think about it, it's hard work right from the beginning of every painting for Downes.
Other pleasures of this reading come from looking at works he mentions in passing: Turner's Lord Egremont Greeting His Dogs, and Hobbema's Middleharnis, among others.
And from learning that Yvonne Jacquette said of recognizing converging vertical lines, "I see it but I refuse to do it."
,
No comments:
Post a Comment