Tender Art

Below the Powerhouse. 16x20 oil on board

Above is a recent start, a work that I stalled on after pausing to take a look at it, since I observed a number of things I want to change but I am not ready to alter it yet until I better understand what I am trying to do here.  I was working at composition and trying for the values I was after, and paid little attention to the method of paint application.  I was attracted to the power of the compositon, the dark promise of the stream leading into... there's part of my problem.  I didn't really want it to lead to a destination, but instead to pull one deeper into the somber overall tone.  It is more an exploration than a finished thought.  At one point I almost felt it should head off into abstraction, and that's also a possibility still.  This is the first thing I have worked on in which I felt the pull of abstraction, but my nature still resists it, wanting something more concrete.  Is it my experience as a builder that steers me in certain directions?  Does my process derive from methods of construction in some way?  I do know that I feel a certain impulse to slap things down quickly, move along, and I think it is the years of framing houses that makes me feel the need to push through toward structure, rather than delicately add marks that accumualte into a coherent whole.  And I have not resisted these urges, even when I question them, because I have believed that there is so much to learn about composition, value, color temperature, etc.  It seems to me more important to learn lessons than to create finished work.

But at what point do I need to change that way of thinking?  Have I deluded myself into thinking it is okay to just forge ahead, assuming that a voice and a style will miraculously appear out of all that effort if I just persist.  Am I kidding myself?  Is this an excuse for not doing the hard work of learning the skills referred to in the following quote from John Ruskin?

From The Elements of Drawing by John Ruskin:  "...there is one quality, and, I think, only one, in which all great and good art agrees; - it is all delicate art.  Coarse art is always bad art.  You cannot understand this at present, because you do not know yet how much tender thought, and subtle care, the great painters put into touches that at first look coarse; but believe me it is true, and you will find it is so in due time."

There is little tenderness in my process.  I have observed other painters working, and I have witnessed their tenderness in mark-making, envious of their almost magical touch.  And yet when I grab a brush, it feels more like a power tool; I feel the need to hammer out something, scrubbing it down, scumbling, sloshing, stacking...  When does my inner maestro wave that wand?

And even realizing all this, even seeing the need is not enough to convince me that I have to make a dramatic change in what I do.  I instead try to plunge ahead in search of passion and meaning.  I do not discount the notion that little by little I may succumb to the truth that a part of my mind can recognize, but in the end it is even more critical to me to hold on to the interest in the doing of it.  It has to be fun, too, and not all intellectual self-direction.  As my friend, Andre Bonhomme, once told me "C'est le plaisir qui count."