11 January 2021
The whole darn sky, for sale!
This is the beginning of a study from last week that I wisely stopped in mid-sentence. I had arrived early to jump in the sea before painting. It was one of those giant blue days and the sand was so hot I had to sprint to the water.
This was to be the first painting. It was unusual for me to start so early in the afternoon but the day was hot so I went to the beach earlier than usual. Everything there appeared so crisp and blue, both the sea and sky housed that cool Prussian Blue. Hardly had I begun when for some reason I just stopped and snapped a photo of it while still on the easel. It’s rare that I show this restraint because normally, though I may like like the start on a painting, I’ll just grab a quick shot of it and continue painting. Rarely, I will put it aside for a rainy day. Because I don’t always have an idea in advance of where I want to go, it will usually morph into something quite unexpected. But this one today spoke to me and told me to set it aside which I did. I quickly jumped into a new one.
But, this raises questions, one, notably about the whole idea that bedevils lots of artists: that of finish. When does a painter decide when a picture is finished? A painting isn’t a jig-saw puzzle after all and I cannot answer that today but I can only note what this image elicited for me.
When I set aside a study that I may feel ‘unfinished’, I’m aware that what I want to preserve is in the fresh idea, maybe even just a fragment of some fleeting sketch of a feeling that is to me alone, novel. This means of course, that by keeping this fragment, will necessarily means preventing the completion of something else, A Sophie’s Choice of sorts. Personally, because I don’t do this very often, I don’t worry about it too much. For me, a sketch is but an abreviated pictorial idea, no big deal.
But still, I’m aware of cutting something short, and the danger of this becoming a habit. One cannot always hold onto all great beginnings after all, if we did, we might never get beyond the first kiss or the first few delicious dates. How would we then ever move on to marriage and children? We’d remain a teenager forever.
No, like a painting, we must jump in further, making mistakes along the way with a secret hope that they’re repairable until they aren’t. And then comes divorce, and tears, and recriminations from all sides. Look, I’m really just trying to discuss a painting but you can see how all things are related? What can start so beautifully, can turn ugly, full of messiness and regrets. Then comes the end alongside the truth, but even that depends upon whose point of view is narrating. This is a story of Loving, but Painting, all bound up together with drama.
The start of this little painting, though not great, had a germ of pictorial promise in it which I had wanted to keep. There was something of it which also reminded me of Japan, and my Nippon fascination, once bitten, then smitten, becomes a life-long infection. If I could, I’d visit Japan two or three times a year. Who can argue with emptiness and space, even when they're crowded all together?
This precociously small sketch of painting evokes both the sand and the deep blue sea, as unsteady stripes that run across the picture plane. Above them, like some displaced polar bear, a monster white cloud seems to barely fit under the eaves of a blue ceiling.
But in it too, I also see something truly American, like in the heyday of large Minimalist Painting back in the 1960’s when life seemed, oh, so much simpler, more expansive, more happy and optimistic too (but mostly if you were white though).
And come to think of it, this image suddenly reveals to me that voraciously oversized American appetite, the one which can never be satiated, the one that screams This is Marlboro Country.
When Americans see emptiness, they tend to think; “This needs to be filled!” So, come to think of it, this image might unveil that voraciously oversized American appetite, the one of my youth which seems never satisfied, the one that screams for more Park Sausages Mom!
But actually, this small start of a study really speaks to me of an giant oversized billboard somewhere out on a desolate stretch off the iconic Route 66, that brightly advertises the sale of the whole darn big blue sky, clouds included!
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