This morning, chatting with a second-year painter in front of her drawings, with our back facing her two paintings, on a sleepy, coffee-less Tuesday at 8 a.m., our conversation drifted to the “fear and love” of painting. Our chat reminded me how much I considered myself a “painter” in my second year of the MFA at Ohio State University, and how scared I was of my own painting…
I attached a piece of writing I did 12 years ago, as a grad student in 2014. I was trying to reflect on why this form of art intimidated me, and to toughen myself up. It was a baby Dan trying to be brave and philosophical about the challenge I was facing, and about eliminating self-doubt—not unlike what is happening on the ground here. I was just as vulnerable as you guys (saying to my MFAs). Devote yourself to that very question that is uniquely yours; it will all work out.
As for myself, I often return to John Berger’s line: “Drawing is discovery.” I would add that painting is also a discovery, and a rediscovery, of the paint itself.
The Consciousness of Painting
- From 2014/05/06, end-of-semester statement as a second-year MFA student at OSU
During a recent studio visit, I was asked why I paint and why my drawings do not exist in their own right but function rather as studies for paintings. At that moment, I felt anxious to respond immediately to these questions, as if, by failing to defend myself, I could somehow lose the right to paint. That, of course, was an irrational reaction to have. Clearly, the activity of painting is not authorized by anyone other than the artist herself, and even if she fails to realize this fact, the visitor's intention demonstrably has more to do with assessing the value of drawing rather than expressing disapproval of painting. In an effort to understand my reaction, I started to think about how my drawings relate to my paintings, and why, after all, it is necessary to paint.
Drawing is beloved for the fluency that characterizes the process. Every day my surroundings offer new inspiration. In his chair I see Adam drop his head with exhaustion, a wobbly plant sets in a corner of the Fine Arts Library, 17th street outside my studio window once again empty on a Saturday afternoon,... these momentary scenes leave me with impressions and the compulsion to again give them form. Drawing allows me to do so. With material and tools standing by, and white watercolor paper cleanly stacked, I have my invitation to begin a visual journey.
Then there is painting, requiring a heavy investment of time, energy, and material to produce a workable surface. In advance of the action, I must decide on the subject, size, medium, canvas, and ground material, then there is building, stretching, stapling, grounding, sanding, more grounding, and more sanding... After all these procedures are carried out, there is at last realized a gorgeous, smooth surface before me, glowing with a terrible and terrifying perfection. However, the surface does not belong to me. The achingly pure white ground seems to demand occupation by an image of equal purity, even perfection, while my ability to deliver one seems impossible. Preparation to take decisive action is confounded by fear and hesitation. Though I feel the problem lies in having allowed too much deliberate, I am unable to stop the budding self- awareness as if born of the prepared canvas itself, which appears more and more complete the longer I withhold the application of paint. The white void of the canvas may exist indefinitely as such in a state awaiting application.
There is a redundancy of thought here impeding my ability to carry out the creative process as efficiently as I would like, and I suspect that by simply converting from painting to drawing, I may be liberated from such a frustrating pattern. Joan Mitchell, Cy Twombly, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, have all done just that and their work seems to enjoy both the fluency of drawing combined with the authoritative appearance of painting.
But what if the issue extends beyond the formal process, beyond the relative validity of the work itself? The demands that a painting makes of me perhaps serve a function. Painting comes with the consequence of certain psychological burdens, but doesn't it simultaneously provide an opportunity to triumph over my own doubt? What if I bring myself in front to that canvas again? Acknowledging this time that my image is always going to be imperfect, knowing that there is always a danger of over- thinking, knowing there is a necessity for self-awareness, indecision and struggle. The infallible painting surface serves me as a test stone for the confidence and authority that I assign to my idea. There is no danger in drawing. Facing fear and doubt is only possible through the painting process, and in taking ownership of this practice, I am trying to confidently admit to my own imperfection. In this way, engaging the canvas, knowing full well the likelihood of repeated failure, becomes an external means to my internal examination.
I must have the consciousness of painting, it is the means by which I seek to free myself from consciousness itself.