Slow Painting

10:02 AM 8/6/2009 (date written)
Note: If my memory serves me correctly, this piece must have started out as an imaginary Q&A between myself and myself. But, here, the questions (Q:) were never written in….???? Interesting? I will leave it at that. Now the reader has to form the question after reading the answer… like Jeopardy.
5:42 PM 8/20/2010

Slow painting

Q:
A: My paintings require a slow entry into them. They are not taken in within a few seconds. It could take an hour, several hours, over several days, over several weeks. It takes some time to get comfortable with my work. My work doesn’t sit well, or fit well, into a world of the sound bite.

Q:
A: Popular culture is just that: popular. The closer an art form comes to how the “average” person relates to it, the more popular it is. Most people are not educated in the more sophisticated underpinnings of what goes into the making or the history of an art form. The less complicated the art form, the more everyday in its relations and communications, the wider its audience; the wider its support; the wider its sales possibility.

Q:
A: My painting is not easy. It not easy to make. It is not easy to read. It is not easy to sell. From a commercial view point it is not a commodity in the popular sense. From a sales position it takes time to sell the work. We exist in a commercial era where time = money. Extrapolate: short time = short money or long time = long money. Uh! No. This isn’t how it works. Gallery success, as I understand it today 2009 (and hopefully it is changing back to where quality over commodity rules) if a painting doesn’t nearly sell itself from a wall, then the art is not successful. In this vein, the artist is dropped from the roster. If the artist doesn’t sell, then the gallery doesn’t support. Pretty direct in my case these past 10 years. An example: In the 80’s my work would sell regularly from a gallery. Also galleries supported an artist more fully than today. When the 90’s started, the art market began to show less interest in art and more in kitsch because kitsch seemed to be where the big bucks were. And big bucks ruled. My sales for the 90’s was dismal. By 2000, my sales were almost 0. No gallery wanted to handle my work. There were no $$$$ (dollar signs) connected to what I was doing. No galleries were interested in me if there was no possible future or money for them in it. And, there was no real interest in investing time via advertising (group and solo shows, print, etc) offered by a commercial gallery. Popular culture had won this battle.+

Q:
A: No. I am not bitter. I understood this problem of self isolation from the very beginning; 1960 or so. ABEX was on the wane then, but I hadn’t entered the art scene yet; and was naive in many ways to painting and the art market (what was an art market to me as an Iowa bumpkin in 1960?). so I set out making the art I wanted to make. Still am doing this today.

Q:
A: Today, 2009, I am hoping that art will be placed back into the art market equation. I would also like to see art education put back into our schools. There has been a steady removal of art in schools over the past 30 years. Bad times = take art out of the schools; funding issues (they say). And who runs the schools? This is another story. Back to my point. Increased art education for the public plus the return of art to galleries should improve my situation. I am nearing 70 so I don’t think this will realistically happen in my life time. I will be grateful to be represented somewhere by a gallery who can tell the difference and is willing to support art and money equally and not money over art. An equality between art and moneyed will be a more successful strategy for selling art in the future (I believe). A point: When looking at old master paintings, the junk still is junk and has no value. The good stuff still is the good stuff and still demands the highest prices and widest viewing. This is a truth then and should be a truth for the future.

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My life with abstract expressionism

10:21 AM 7/10/2009 (date written)

My life with abstract expressionism

What does this sentence really mean? It means this! From my start in 1960, when I first took making art as a serious part of my life, I was very impressed with the work of many of the more famous abstract expressionist painters at that time. The most influential painters, for me, were: W. deKooning, H. Hofmann, Philip Guston, R. Motherwell, James Brooks, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, Nicholas de Still, Afro and Tapies. Lesser painters that interested me at that time: Miro, Matisse, Giocometti, Francis Bacon — some others that I can’t remember at this time. I didn’t respond very well to the work of Picasso or Jackson Pollack. I don’t have a very good reason why I didn’t respond to them, I just didn’t. Remember! At that time I was very new to the world of art and painting and was very ignorant to what was going on at the time. Before I forget it, I did not respond to the new painting thinking at the time reflected in the works of Rauschenberg, Warhol, any of the geo painters (old or new).

I responded to realist painters old and new because I respected the technical issues required to paint realistically; especially the patience required to do it. I was too impatient to struggle through the learning how to paint 3-d forms. Eventually I settled down and learned all of this; especially by the end of my graduate school daze in 1967; working full time with this aspect of painting from 1969-1973. At the end of 1973 I realized that I wasn’t a good story teller and stopped painting realism. And I never found a way to use realism (the human figure mainly) in a non-narrative or literary way. I couldn’t wrap my brain around not connecting realism to stories. Go figure?

Back to my roots in Ab Ex. Retrospection and reflecting on what and how I felt about painting 1960, and to this day 2009, I never really operated with Ab Ex from a true emotional center. I used Ab Ex from a perceptual position much like the Appropriationist artists of the 1980’s used the visual ideas of other artists in their work. As I remember talking to myself in the years 1960-64 (undergrad years at Iowa) and 1964-1967 (graduate years at Iowa) — I used visual snips from Motherwell, from Guston (main man during graduate years), from deKooning, etc. I liked certain elements of all these painters and used from them what I needed to build my paintings. I still do this today 2009.

IN this light, my paintings are intellectual constructions of visual ideas made up of [from] a history of seeing paintings by other artists (all historical years and models) coupled to my own history of painting stuff (some mine and most borrowed [appropriated]). In this sense, my paintings are not abstract expressionist works at all. Somewhere in all this structuring, my personality enters; my use of design, color, line, shape, size, texture is all me; all my personality; all my unique signature in the same way as my handwriting is all me even though I use the same methods to formulate the letters when I write (we have to leave out the computer or typewriter here, although the sentence structure and the way I use the word and sentence structures is also the real me).

From about 1986 onward, I began to use the computer to aid me in my painting by creating works unique to the computer and works that combined my painting structure with the digital structure. Today I use the computer as an aid to 1) start paintings, 2) solve painting problems by using a digital picture of a painting in process, make changes on the digital image before making actual changes to the painting itself; this is especially useful when working on large paintings – it removes the time required to make a change – do it digitally first (often several times to find a likeable solution), then making the change. I have used the computer to create an image, then enlarged this image and painted it. Throughout this phase of computer related painting (1995-2006) the question of “why copy? Why enlarge through paint itself? Why do it again?” was always in my mind. I wanted to simply print these images on canvas and let it go at that but never had the funding required to do this. So large format prints on canvas were never made. It would have been fun to enlarge the digital images, print to canvas, then either leave alone or work back into these images; to see where this could have gone. Oh well! Never happened; probably never will. No longer interested.

In final analysis (at this time – the beat goes on) I am not a true Abstract Expressionist. I am an appropriationist. I appropriate snips from other painters and recombine them with my own snips and make a painting or set of paintings. My painting sets rarely repeat themselves totally. In my most inner sanctum I never want to repeat myself. Robert Rauschenberg speaks to this thinking and expresses my sentiments on the topic/subject of repeating oneself or copying what another painter does; I paraphrase: “If it has been done already by someone else, I don’t want to do it because the problems or issue specific to the image/painting has been solved. If i solved a problem in a painting or set of paintings, the thrill is gone when repeating the solution for the sake of making a painting.”

How this works: I have an idea. This idea is usually rather foggy in its mental configuration. I start a painting by using an element that pops into my conscious mind; the first solution idea. I make this move. I study the painting. I have another “first solution idea” and make the corresponding move. I have another “first solution idea” and make this move. This continues indefinitely as, for me, a painting is never completed. I just stop getting the first solution ideas and resulting moves. All of this painting experience is very much like what happens to Bill Murray in Ground Hog day. The life of a painting is a continual set of building upon a new awakening.

2:50 AM 7/13/2009: My painting life, thus, is a journey where through my painting I am forever arriving at something. I spend my time in the studio traveling and searching for clues, ideas, methods, materials. The vehicle for this travel is my painting.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH! The medium is very much an actor in this formula. The medium is the message? Maybe???!!!! The medium carries the message? What is the difference? Or. The medium is just the medium and I enjoy using it because of my interest in how it feels or doesn’t feel. The medium is the subject? Yes? NO? So it becomes a play where the medium, the snip, the color, the line, the shape, the texture, the size, are all actors responsible for revealing the plot of the piece. This plot can be nothing more, or nothing less than a display of these actors themselves.

Now we get away from painting and move into the realm of literature, philosophy, religion. None of this is what my paining is about. From this position – call it interpretation, “what it means”, etc – I have tried over the years to explain what my painting means, or is. Specifics change over time. At times I question this myself. As I write this 11:09 AM 7/10/2009 my best effort states this: my paintings are abstractions, mostly non-objective [no relationship to the visual world as we know it] and express a meaning (if there is one) through color, shape, size, yada ; creating, for some individuals, an emotional response [which is acceptable to me] and in some individuals a verbal response [most of the time a verbal response means HUH?] and is not acceptable to me 100% of the time unless the verbal response reflects the individual’s personal connection. My paintings are best understood as mirrors; reflection the individual’s zeit geist. Also, I would be very happy if my paintings were accepted and experienced as if they were visual music.

Enuff said at this time in a flash moment of clarity that just went away 11:15 AM 7/10/2009.

dpn

2:37 AM 7/13/2009: When an artist works primarily with abstracted forms (from nature or not), or non-objective (no objects intended; no photography), he/she cannot be specific trying to attach a meaning to these paintings. My definition for abstraction is that it is a process of leaving out details. Expounding further, in a non-objective sense, all physical, photographic-like detail has been removed from a painting. All that remains on the 2-d surface is paint, color, shapes, lines, and texture. In a psychological sense, an abstract painting morphs into a Rorschach identity. Thus, the artist/maker may have inserted his/her meaning but by the nature of the non-objective identity of the painting, a viewer will never really know what the painter’s intentions are/were. So, the perceiver must then apply his/her own meaning factors to or from the painting; let the painting speak to them from an autobiographical position. This is where my “mirror” concept comes from. Going to an extreme with the mirror analogy, all of us perceive 100% of our inner and outer universe entirely alone; up close and personal to ourselves; responsible to ourselves only in the end [what end?]. We cannot get into another’s skin at all; period!

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My Paintings; a definition stated June 2009

MY PAINTINGS
PREAMBLE • PART I

At the outset if [I, we, you] regard a work of art as fusion of form and content then an artist [painter] creates an action in the painting covering form transforming subject matter into content. Also at this outset let us agree as [me] artist/painter and you [reader/audience] that this simple definition is arguable. I use it only as a reference point. I have been writing this definition in way too many writings and in way too many diverse directions over the past 50 years to continue it here. I simply want to strip away the bs and set down a base definition of what my paiting is to me so it means something to you; so you can engage in my painting instead of running away from it.

In very basic terms, my painting is about the making end of this activity and comes in two parts:

1) Internal information based on what can be seen in the work itself and can be divided into three categories: subject matter, medium, and form.

* Subject matter refers to those recognizable people, places, or events in the work for realism; shapes, colors, texture, etc.; for nonobjecive works — the paining itself.

* Medium refers to the material the work is made from. Medium, for me is also a subject for a painting.

* Form refers to the way the artist shapes the subject with the medium. In non-objective and non-representational work, medium and form may well predominant with no identifiable subject matter.

and 2) External information includes data about the time in which the piece was made, its social and intellectual environment, other works by the same artist, and work by other artists of the same period.

PREAMBLE • PART II

Once a painting is made the following aspects of my work are out of my control:

3) Interpreting: As maker and viewer we both do this from our own life history; including knowledge and/or the lack of knowledge on the subject of painting as a fine art. Set this aside. I as the maker can help the viewer understand my activity and its results by outlining the internal information as best I can. The internal information is very up close and personal to the artist/maker. It becomes a situation of how aware of detail in this internal information the artist is and how willing he/she is about revealing it. I tend to not want to reveal much of it as a lot of how I feel or what I think the internal information is can seem embarassing to admit what it is. I tend to not want to reveal that warts exist. Quite simply I don’t want to reveal to a reader/audience/viewer that I don’t know what my painting really is. Yikes!

3a) Interpreting external informaton: External evidence consists of information located outside the work itself: The artist’s other work, biography, gender, race, age, the social, political, religious preference, place [where the work was made], and time in which the work was made. Interpreting external information, for me, is also speculation. Points of data are certainly arguable as to their definitions and what elements that should be included or excluded. Interpreting external information also can be wrapped in philosophy.
However, all this being said, I believe that we all have to agree works of art [painting/s] are about something. I and you interpret our best understanding of the evidence presented [in a painting or paintings].

4) Evaluating: This activity focuses on judging the artistic merits of a work of art according to standards either learned academically or experiencially. These standards need to be addressed, clearly defined and outlined, and argued. Evaluating becomes a very personal activity. For me, I think it best that to evaluate my painting requires an open mind; open to a wide variety of source material known to a viewer and if not known, left out of the evaluation at the time. To best understand and interpret my paintings, it is best to study what you don’t know. Accumulated knowledge of the processes included in the above will make the engagement experience with my paintings much richer. 50 individuals look at the same painings and come up with 50 individual evaluations. I like to think that the internal information the viewer brings to the experience also plays a part. Thus, in this aspect of the experience, my paintings are mirrors. From this view, I ascertain that each individual that agrees to engage in one of may paintings or group of paintings will understand something that is revealed there. The specifics of this revealing may or may not be conscious and the feelings can run a gammut of human emotions. If my painting or paintings succeed the response to them is love or hate; never indifference. Indifference means that a painting has failed in some way for the viewer.

THE NITTY GRITTY• PART III
MY PAINTING IS

1) —about the medium and how it can be manipulated to construct an event-like interaction with a viewer. The event usually takes form as an emotional interaction. Sometimes the logic of this manipulation is obvious; sometimes not.

2) —about the medium and how its unique quality defines it. Each medium —be it oil paint, acrylic polymer paint, polyvinyl Acetate Paint, encaustic (hot and cold processes), watercolor, gouache, ink, pencil, crayon, etc.— creates its own unique mark on the same support using the same tool. Change the support and the mark will change also [see item 4].

3) I like to think that how I approach making a painting is closely related to how a Zen painter takes the time to create a meditative state within which to set down the brush and ink mark or marks. Directly related to this approach is my use of the surrealist technique of automatism.

4) My painting is also about the uniqueness of the support selected and how the medium of choice responds to this support when the paint is applied. Each support takes the paint differently. For example, visually compare how oil paint looks and feels when applied to paper (sized or unsized— each accepts oil differently), primed and unprimed canvas, primed or unprimed woods (different wood species also accept oil paint differenlty). Now take the samples described in 2) and observe the differences in each of the interactions between the medium, the support, and the application tools. This simple process, for me, has enuff mystery, problems, and excitement to engage me in exploring the same issues over and over and over. However, it is the nature of this making process that the same problem never really presents itself from one painting to the next.

5) My painting is about color. Attach color to all that has been described so far. For me it is a tall order to make sense of how this stuff functions at the basic making level; making a mark on a support with a medium and a selected color using a selected tool. I keep hoping the next painting will clear a mystery. It doesn’t. Then on to the next painting. On and on!

6) Whew! What is next? The next painting takes this exploration to a next order. Defining the order is a topic for another discussion. Defining the order or discussing this order is the stuff of philosophy and speculation. It takes my painting deeper into the realm of the personal. Herein lies an elementary fact regarding order. We as individuals like and dislike something according to a privately designed rule or paradigm; personal preference if you will.

7) At first, when I started painting in 1960, I really liked the abstract expressionist painters of the first and second generation. I had a strong emotional-feel-good-response to what I saw. It didn’t take me very long to realize that I didn’t feel the same experiences they did when they formed this approach to painting [art making] in the 1940’s. First, I am not an urban person; born and raised in a small city in Iowa. Second, I liked what I saw mainly through magazine illustrations. There was little or no actual samples of this kind of art to see, feel, etc. where I lived. I had to imagine what surfaces were all about; how the paint was handled and applied. I saw my first in-person abstract expressonist painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1965; Hans Hofmann’s yadayayay. I melted before the painting. When I tried to paint this way I got discouraged in a hurry. I discovered that I wasn’t Hans Hoffman and my attempts to use his structures and color didn’t come close to “being” in the same way. I had to adjust my painting to “be” me. I am still adjusting today in 2009! Over the years I tried-on other artists as I learned of them only to get discouraged quickly. They weren’t me either!

8) My painting 2009 is still all about what I have described so far. Over the years my programs swing between simple structures, which are somewhat minimal or sparce, and structures that are complex and busy. I am not an abstract expressionist! Although I appropriate some of their outward visualness. I focus on the medium and its unique qualities, how it holds color, brush stroke and other elements this uniqueness reveals.
I haven’t mentioned space and painting. Yes! My work incorporates space. Space is a secondary issue to medium and color.
I haven’t mentioned psychology and painting. I haven’t mentioned literature and painting. I did mention emotion and painting. I don’t consciously use psychology or literature as a structure in my painting. I am a horrible story teller so I don’t use literature or tell stories with my art. Following closely to this, I don’t place hidden or classic psychological attachments to my colors, textures, spaces, sizes, or techniques. I do, once in a while, like to use a surrealist element of surprise; something, an element, that when observed within a painting, doesn’t seem to fit and clashes, or indifferently exists in the painting. These surprise elements sometimes offer no logic to their existence in a painting. I will place a word or a number in a painting because I wanted to include it for what it is. Simple to me. No logic to others.

9) Projects 2009: Acrylic polymer paint on canvas, paper, linen, and wood; encaustic (hot wax) painting on wood, paper, linen, and cotton. Approach: Generous involvement in the Automatism process to make 2-D visual art; some use of appropriation— using solutions by other artists because, frankly, I find it easier to use their solution to solve a painting problem— saves me time and mental energy; generous use of various tools to manipulate the paint and color. Conscious restrictions: 1) do not tell stories, 2) do not use realism as this opens the door to literature in my painting.

10) My painting and a general reference to a definition of what my painting is in context of this writing— simple is good and drawn-out explanations tend to get lost on personal and hermetic philosophy on what I think painting is generally and what my painting is to me.

11) Up to this point in my life, this is what I believe to be my painting and what it is about.

David Novak
Matthews, NC
Sunday, June 14, 2009

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New Writing for my blog – Restart the Update

New Writing for my blog

Out of sight out of mind?  Or old age and a failing memory?  I see that my last entry in this blog was October 23, 2008.  I wish I could say that I have been too busy to keep this blog updated.  Not true.  I am lazy pure and simple.  I think about including something, then procrastinate, then nothing happens.  I am, after all, a professional procrastinator.

This being said, I write something on a daily basis.  I record studio notes and save them on computer as text files.  Sometimes these notes are used as reference for future studio work or as a base for creating statements on my web site.  I find something on the web and record a comment about this find.  I also save these notes as reference for creating blog entries.

I have decided it is now time to begin an update process for this blog.  I will start where I left off in October 2008.  The directory on my hard drive where I store my writing has 594 files dating back to 2002; 223 date from October 1, 2008 to now.  No!  I don’t plan to include all of them.  Some of these files are very incomplete and exist as outlines or just a word or two.  From this main set of 223 writings, I have selected 32 that, to me, seem appropriate for publishing here.  From this edited set of 32 I am preparing only 15 writings to be edited and published.  I will work forward from 10.01.08 to now; 06.14.09 will be the first piece offered titled “My Paintings”.

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