An Allegory

November 29, 2007 in symposium

“I shall praise Socrates in a figure which shall appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I do not mean to laugh at him, but only to speak the truth.”
Alcibiades. The Symposium; by Plato.
And yet everyone laughed at what Alcibiades went on to say, after saying these words. Who’s laughing now– [...]

Sand Castles

November 28, 2007 in brushes

I was at the beach, sunny enough so that overhead there was a game of powder—pattycake happening between the salt and sun. I began watching a boy just a few feet away. He was alone with only a scoop and pale—and then there was the sand, everywhere. It wasn’t long until the [...]

Spattering

November 27, 2007 in brushes

This is for you Olive.
When I look upon my new book, just one page, and one picture, I want to draw my hand across it slowly. I want to feel the lines beneath them, how the contours are rhythmical, how it is that I can create enough friction by moving either faster or slower—to [...]

Fire(this)Side

November 25, 2007 in Uncategorized

I am with the art, it is not moving—and neither will I. I dare it to move, just a little—you don’t think I will do something? Something unthinkable—like burn it, if it does?
One move, a move that I don’t want—and it will get it.
It was an old practice, Nathanael Hawthorne burnt all his [...]

Santa Monica CA: May 1 1985.

November 25, 2007 in bay area figurative, diebenkorn

Richard Diebenkorn Interview.
Side A.
Diebenkorn is born in 1922.
1933- Around this time Diebenkorn is age eleven; during the summers he visits his Grandmother: Florence Stephens, a writer, painter, and lawyer. He has by now begun drawing and carving, drawing at first on cardboard, that was used to pack t-shirts for his father’s company, and carving, [...]

Part One / The Figurative

November 25, 2007 in figurative

The figurative—as in a figure of speech. I sometimes want to use speech like clay, as if my breath would act like my hands—the way my hands knead clay.
As in a figure of speech—I want a body to appear, but not any body. I want an ideal body—one with chiaroscuro. [...]

The Sign: No painting here.

November 24, 2007 in letter

Why spend so much time writing about painting—don’t you need the practice? You know you aren’t really that good a painter—that is to spend so much time not painting?
Yes, you are right. So right. I am not a painter, I never will be. Consider it done: I am not [...]

Loose Sense

November 24, 2007 in brushes

The body is so pale, light always cascades across it. It is something like glamour—on short supply. When I look at your body, I want silence most of all. Nobody talking, no thoughts to form inside me. I want everything naked, just as if it were passing through time—that moment before [...]

A Weak Drawing

November 24, 2007 in brushes

I am weak, too weak to draw. I haven’t seen something worth looking at in—so long. But it is night time, it its the time to draw, I have this time aside for sharpening pencils and opening pads of paper—all to myself.
I am too weak, but drawing is something like a [...]

Draw? and Brushes?

November 24, 2007 in brushes

But you do draw, don’t you? Just a little while ago, yes, I was drawing. I can even see my mistakes, but for some reason it just was too easy to keep going, rather than stop. Perhaps stop before I even started: drawing. In answer to your question: I am not [...]