A friend of mine offered some food. It’s a bit out that I’m by some standards an anorexic. I don’t think I’m anything, but for the sake of moving on, I’d like to acknowledge that food is a lot of what I think about, and coming into adulthood, the automatic ‘I’m hungry’, or my body will deal with it has not followed. Have I been influenced by outsiders, older people? Undoubtedly, but nonetheless it is something I’m noticing, and that I can talk about it is a good sign, as it means to some extent I have been through it- through being the operative term. … I keep pulling benders (sleepless nights, long painting days; inconsistencies, mixups) to get to paintings. I’m not saying that paintings need to come from benders, but rather that paintings need to be stolen, or captured, or waited out, or come up upon, and the irregularities of life mean that the living paintings need to be found in off times and in-betweens.
Spending a weekend with Stewart Shils was impactful. In short, it was a return to a painting-thin and fast modality, with an emphasis on color reverence, hierarchies, and brush language (or movement). It was a glimpse down the road thirty years. And I’m Very grateful to have been in attendance.
I saw Thomas on the elevator a few days later and asked how his painting was going, and made an analogy though now I forgot about what, and his analogy was that he’d just been given a Ferrari, and had to kind of learn how to handle it, and I fucking loved that, and it’s what I think about when I paint now.. Stewart asks ‘how is this moment different from all the rest?’, and is brave in mixing his colors. He’s fast, he’s clean; he wears gloves and an apron, his mixtures (I’m tempted to characterize as blonde, though not necessarily) are complex, but not pretentiously so, and by my account are true mixtures. (This to contextualize my ‘learned’ schemes and lazy lazy shortcuts; I even alluded often to ‘hacking’ a painting, as if I knew what the fuck was going on)
This morning it was pouring rain. Pouring. My ceiling used to leak, but no longer does and I wonder if it’s been fixed, or if I’m to expect a big break in my luck soon. I didn’t have morning class. I thought I’d maybe wake inspired to make a batch of cookies, but as it goes I woke to realize how manic I’d been, and that by the grace of god, the sleep had brought back some health and clarity, and I could have even more, so I slept in! I must have looked incorrectly at my calendar, as I thought I had a critique at 10 am with Didier William. I must have looked this morning upon waking at 10- I’d already basically missed it. I took it as a loss, and slept a couple more hours. When I went to the bathroom and pissed, and came back to the bed to lie on my back I realized that THAT was true clarity, and this, THIS is true clarity, and after a moment sat up and THAT was true clarity. I had another critique at 1:30 with Stewart (though again I was mistaken- it was for tomorrow’s afternoon), and I had to catch a trolley before I could meditate, lest I miss it. I used the last berg of my deodorant, though there’s always a little left, it’s just a matter of how long you’re going to play that bergy-plastic-sheath game before the deodorant package is considered trash. I considered breaking out the shirts again, as when it rains up here I think of Jamaicans wading through wet and flooded streets; and you have to dry your feet- so shorts would do well for wicking. Things aren’t like that up here, so I wore pants. I’m committed to pants for the season. Everything’s falling apart (clothes-wise) but I’ll make it through winter no problem.
Williams crit last time was that I could make words but not worlds. I wonder if this is a critique of his own work. To make worlds I believe would be illustration.
A video I watched was about someone dying of cancer, and she said, you’ll know dying when what you take in takes away rather than adds to.
When I know I’m dying, I do not eat, and that has been a focus of mine. Because food at that point would take away; there’s no winning.
Thus capital a Art makes its polemic through the young. It’s the taking in that’s encouraged. Taking in, taking in. But when you cannot take in any longer without dying, you must put out, give; illustrate.
I think of Picasso or Degas here. Eat eat eat, then, shit? Maybe I’m thinking too lightly of a fantasy 60 year old composer laughing and making pictures ‘flick of the wrist’, ‘to ha e conquered the beast’. It probably doesn’t get any easier. Rumor is it gets harder; not to be shitty.
So the illustrators are mature and wise in some ways. They don’t feign profundity for some historian’s eye. They make something clear, even if it’s disparate.
What’s unfortunate for the young illustrator is that they have a lackluster skill set, and sometimes a shallow base of experience. It takes a great measure of self awareness and maturity to acquire the skill set and an understanding of ‘what makes this moment different from all other moments’, to make something of power. The illustrators’ impulse is profound, and the illustrators’ journey long.
