As serious as I want it to be

When I sit down to discuss a topic

Regardless of what that topic is

My one wish is that I am understood

Please correct me if I am wrong but isn’t that what we are all after?

To be understood

Especially if the topic is close to our heart

Here is the crux of the matter

Each painting is intrinsically tied to my heart

Not only that

I want the viewer to understand clearly what I am trying to say in each work

In fact I would go so far as to say that it feels like I need them to

understand

Now I get the fact that this type of mentality is linked to external validation at its worst

But

At its best, this is about data.

Data that tells me if my visual language is being understood

If my painting is clearly saying what I intended of it

If the image is activating in the viewer what it has

activated in me

If I am trying to express an opinion to someone in the realm of speech

Especially if I wish people to understand clearly what it is I am saying

I will use all the tools at my disposal

Vocabulary

Pantomiming

Volume fluctuation

Emotional imperatives

What ever it takes

Like any conversation or point I am trying to get across

The more detailed and acute my selection of words the more detailed and acute my point may be

For example how might the conversation go If I were trying to express whether I am:

happy or sad

lost in the wonder of a sunrise

entrenched in the fear of my own mortality

Now imagine how the paintings might differ

How our visual vocabulary must have the same vast lexicon

The same subtle insinuation

That our actual language does

Perhaps even more so

As an artist I can see the benefit of both:

The explanation of emotions

And

the retelling of cold hard facts

Is it important that the viewer understand that there are a herd of horses in the field?

Is it important that they feel a sense of belonging?

Which is the more important point in the painting?

How much weight, time, canvas do I give to each?

Making a broad statement that is open to interpretation

Giving concrete information so there can be no doubt what the intention is

Are we:

Activating a feeling that is seasoned with the person’s own memory

A nuanced well described idea that seeks to inform the viewer of something outside of their experience

One draws on empathy

The other on sympathy

abstract or representational

The thing with painting as a conversation is that I wish to have as many options,

As many techniques,

As many words

As possible

I need to be able to use everything at my disposal

The tools, paints, substrate, texture, colour, saturation, value, composition, design, abstraction, symbolism, stroke economy, contour, edge, softness, light, shadow, size, and on and on and on….

There is no end to what is available to you

We can break down each of those examples into smaller and smaller examples more and more detailed

Infinitesimally finding more and more detailed ways to work.

And at the same time I can move the opposite way becoming simpler more broad

Not even concerning myself with a slow methodical detailed approach

but using a intuitive and emotional set of parameters that are done in the moment

Which is a whole different way of speaking

A scene from hamlet

An improv comedy troupe

Perhaps we can move beyond those things?

At the very least work in and around them

The same goes with painting

The ability to paint in different ways

Not purely style

But the metadata that makes up a style

Okay this is all well and good.

I feel like that point is easy to understand.

how does all of this talk of communicating an idea, or feeling, visually have to do with studying from life?

Studying from life is the one way in which we learn how to speak visually.

We learn what the shapes, colours, lines, values all mean

I am not speaking of a definition of what a certain colour or shape might mean

But something infinitely more detailed

Have you ever been to a place and felt joy?

A joy that is outside of any previous experience or memory of said place?

How much of what you are feeling when you look out into this place is based on the the visual elements?

Is it a lake?

A sunset?

A las vegas casino?

By stopping and studying, whether drawing or painting, you are actively claiming the complexity of all of the visual elements that make up how you are feeling.

Ascribing each paint stroke, colour, and shape, to a feeling. Whether conscious or sub

What if the next day you go back to the same spot under the same conditions but this time you have gotten into a fight with a lover or friend?

Do you not think the painting will turn out the same if the visual information is run through the lens of pain and suffering?

Will the two paintings, when placed side by side, tell a very different story and illicit a very different response?

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If I asked you to create an abstract painting that represented love what one colour would you choose?

Red right?

Now how would you go about creating a painting that activated in the viewer the idea of love if we were limiting ourselves to only black and white paint?

Would you paint a white heart on a black background?

What if we wanted to create a black and white painting, that is completely abstract, about love?

What if instead of love we wanted to activate the feeling of the first time you kissed someone romantically?

Each of these questions requires critical thinking and a vocabulary that can expound the efforts of that thinking

Outside of trial and error, which I feel will never leave my tool kit, there has to be a pathway to create.

A way in which we can at least move towards the goal.

Like most ideas that I bring up in conversation, this blog, or the podcasts, they take time to hone.

To polish and sharpen

until it slices through any misunderstanding or confusion

And here is the kicker

What if my wish is to confuse and create misunderstanding?

Will people understand that I am not trying to be understood?

The legitimacy of your painting

I.e. how serious people will take what you do

Rests entirely on the visual language used

If you have made it this far

congratulations

After rereading this essay the one question that comes to mind is:

Am I saying that you must continually study from life?

That if you don’t then what you are saying is pure gibberish?

I don’t think that is the case.

A limerick

is very different from

a scientific journal

They both have value

They both help the world

They are both needed.

Just as different styles of painting

The reason painting is never ending is because of the infinite visual vocabulary of humanity