How to become an overnight success
Photo by Ted Russell
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
15 years ago I attended the Illustration Academy in Richmond, VA. One of the visiting artists was Mark English - he was around 70 years old at the time and had been painting for decades. He carried an air of Clint Eastwood gravitas, wise and no-nonsense. He said that when people asked him how long it took him to do a painting, he’d respond something along the lines of '65 years and 3 days.’ I’ve heard different variants of this over the years and when I repeat Mark’s version, people often reply, “Man, that guy sounds like an asshole.” But I thought the opposite. Mark English is a craftsman and his value is the sum total of years and years of accumulated knowledge, experimentation, study, practice, and experience that have been honed into instinct. Bob Dylan has said that some of his notable songs were written in a matter of minutes, but a novice songwriter can't just sit down and crank out Blood on the Tracks.
Illustration by Mark English
My paintings are fairly quick - some take a few days, others drag on much longer. There is a process involved - locating an appropriate historical photograph, manipulating it in Photoshop, printing it, projecting it, drawing it, doing an underpainting, and then executing the actual painting, which is comprised of many layers. Sometimes the painting comes easy and choices happen instantaneously, other times it’s a street fight. A while back, I threw away over 75 ‘duds,’ paintings that just didn’t hit the mark. But, in my opinion, failure is fertilizer for success. Bottom line - one individual work of art can happen quickly but the path to get there is rarely fast or easy.
How do you know when a painting is finished?
This is a question that I get pretty frequently because of the way that I paint - I tend to play around with negative space, leaving pencil marks and areas of the underpainting exposed.
There's a story about Kurt Cobain trying to perfect a song in the studio and he couldn't get the feeling right. He commented that it sounded better when he was just laying on his back on the couch. And inevitably, that's exactly how they recorded it. Because mood matters and now that computers can play chess, answer questions, predict our musical preferences, suggest purchases, and take beautiful photographs, the so-called imperfections become the pivotal humanizing element of a piece of art.
The risk that I run is overworking a painting and it's easy to 'drive past the exit.' There are other artists who fight past this point but there's a layered watercolor element of my work that dies when the surface gets too busy and/or opaque.
Gilbert Stuart's unfinished portrait of George Washington is the single image that has most influenced my historical portraits because of its energy, minimalist composition, and earthy color palette. While there are other painters that have had more of an impact on me (Alice Neel, Richard Diebenkorn, Andy Warhol) this painting is my center line. Stuart started the portrait study but never finished it (he'd go on to use it for many other replicas however). Ironically, it became his most well known image and the most immediately recognizable representation of Washington. There is an interesting juxtaposition of craft and speed, spontaneous intuitive energy and finite precision, to the piece and the incompleteness also creates some interesting symbolism for our country and its first leader. Happy July 4th.
The Importance of Experiencing Art in Person
“So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.”
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer
Henry Taylor
Aliza Nisenbaum
People frequently complain about Jackson Pollock. They say things like, "I don't get it" and "I could do that" or "That's just a splattered mess." Personal opinions are valid in art but my reply to those comments is always the same question, "Have you ever seen one of his paintings in person?" Because there is something visceral and overwhelming about seeing a Pollock - a two inch print in a schoolbook just doesn't do it justice. Pollock paintings have a great deal of nuance - the sheer number of colors is surprising because he's so often associated with black inky paint on raw canvas. There are fingerprints, crinkles, blurry drips of thinned paint alongside thicker ones. And there is certainly pattern, intent, and energy. Dismissing his work after seeing it in a book is like listening to Nirvana on a shitty tape deck and saying, "There's distortion and I can't understand the lyrics."
I just returned from a trip to New York - my wife and I zigzagged across the city, seeing as much art as we could cram into a few days. We went to the Whitney, the Met, Met Breuer, and MoMA - to name a few. This is not our first trip of this nature but I saw more inspiring work in a short window than any past visit. The Whitney Biennial was particularly interesting because, to me, it represented a changing of the guard - you could see the new leaders in art emerging from this grouping of contemporary artists. The attitude of the work was youthful, smart, largely figurative, and certainly more accessible than what I associate with past generations of academic artists. The highlights for me were Henry Taylor, Celeste Dupuy-Spencer, Shara Hughes, Aliza Nisenbaum, and Carrie Moyer. But there is one painting in particular that caught me off guard...
I'd read several articles in advance (see links below), so I was prepared for the controversy and content of the work. Intellectually, I knew exactly what the piece was about, the artist's point of view, the public response, and I'd seen the image many times online. But when I stood in front of Dana Schutz's "Open Casket," I got emotional. I didn't cry but I did come close and that is not something that is normal for me in a museum - I'm usually the guy eyeballing the tiny details to see how the paint was applied or which materials were used. This painting was different, like touching a nerve ending or having chills shoot up the back of your neck. It packs a punch and holds you by the throat. There can be magic in art that is almost purely driven by the gut/heart/soul. Intellectualizing art or demeaning it by only focusing on content from afar is missing out on its true value to society. As Bruce Lee said, "It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."
Hyperallergic: Censorship, Not the Painting, Must Go: On Dana Schutz’s Image of Emmett Till
The New Yorker: Why Dana Schutz Painted Emmett Till
The Washington Post: A white artist responds to the outcry over her controversial Emmett Till painting
The Guardian: The painting that has reopened wounds of American racism
The New York Times: Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed?
Blouin Art Info: Problem Painters: Dana Schutz and David Salle in Conversation
Artsy: Dana Schutz Bio & Works
Dana Schutz
Avoiding Resistance & Self Doubt
As I plodded down the pavement in the dark, the smell hit me hard. Since I've been watching the new season of Twin Peaks, I immediately thought of Laura Palmer, wrapped in plastic. The fetid odor was intense for several yards, then dissipated. On the way back home, I passed by the spot again and realized the sickly stench was that of death - a lone shrimp had fallen out of someone's cooler.
Again yesterday, I ran into a similar scenario about two miles into the morning run. Along the edge of the sidewalk, where concrete meets grass, there was a shiny black coiled snake. But after a few more miles, I returned to the spot and emerging daylight revealed a black plastic fast food plate.
There are all kinds of real dangers in the world - car accidents, domestic violence, human trafficking, and terrorism. But there are also perceived bogeymen, things that block us from our life goals via negative energy. Steven Pressfield calls it "resistance." I've heard of artists who get locked up by a harsh critique, unsupportive family members, or just good old fashioned self doubt.
The next time you see a coiled serpent in your path - be careful but look closer - it might just be someone else's garbage.
Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks
Slowing Down & Being Present
On my morning run, I came across an empty lot where a church once stood - it was torn down recently, like many other old buildings in Charleston and Mount Pleasant, to make way for the future. So it's an empty lot with three crosses standing out front, representing Calvary. About 30 strides later, there was a chain link fence gate, wide open, with a sign that said 'Enter Here.' This made me laugh, it seemed like a visual pun from God - which made me think about poetry and the importance of slowing down. Normally on a run like this, I'd be counting under my breath, checking my average pace on the Garmin, and straining to do more mileage, faster. But I slowed down on Saturday because I am starting back with running and had begun to develop shin splints - so my cadence was leisurely and I was open to the world around me.
I continued the run, still thinking about that open gate, when I saw an elderly woman walking toward me on the side walk. As she drew closer, we said hello to one another and I saw that her white t-shirt had an ironed-on photograph of a little boy, above his face were the words 'Rest in Peace.' This made me think about juxtaposition and irony, age and mortality.
Less than a half mile later, I ran past a little gas station that was yawning to life in those dawn hours. Music was blaring from outdoor speakers. The song playing was, 'All I Need is a Miracle.'
Walls and blinders are omnipresent in modern life - iPhones, cubicle walls, gated communities, headphones, and passwords. The day is a process of constant blocking to avoid the steady hum and whir of the outside world. But what if we chose moments to let the universe communicate with us?