Minor Disasters

I have to apologize, it's been quite a while since my last posting - more than a year!  I've  produced a few more of the small paintings for the series I call "Minor Disasters" -  Originally these were based on a number of simple line drawings done reflecting on my own past  accidents, injuries or surgeries . I've shown some of those here back in the past - both preliminary ink drawings and more finished acrylic paintings like "Fever" here right.

While the drawings were a form of personal release for me, the small paintings were an attempt to communicate gut level reactions and perhaps set up recognition of common experience, common humanity. To that end I've expanded my own views to include the kinds of disasters we see so often in the news these days. Above is one of the latest, the larger (unfinished) "Orlando". It may turn out to be a stylistic variation from older pieces like "Fever" but that's alright. I'm not a new artist trying to establish a presence.

Pain or love or danger makes you real again... (Jack Kerouac)

As soon as there is life, there is danger. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our being. (Michel de Montaigne)

I Lied!

I lied?  Well, not exactly.  I spoke earlier of my keen interest in observation, of not "knowing" the subject but "seeing" well.  - and in regard to much of my work it's true.  I sit back cooly perusing  the subject, carefully putting line on paper, producing a (hopefully) lovely object, a "work of art". 

 I'm here to tell you that isn't all there is to it!  I didn't mention the importance of involvement in art.  Sixteenth century Chinese Toaist  artists said you must become one with the object.  An artist should envision himself in the tree, feel what it is to be the tree, they said, in order to understand its structure and spirit. Only after lengthy meditation of this type could he then put brush to paper successfully. There is a lot of merit in this approach, - and some real difficulty! To be truly involved you must really feel and sometimes you'd rather not!

I've been very sick this weekend.   I'm coming out of it but still very weak.  Curled up in my feverish bed I tend to bore in on my situation in life.  "Situation in life"!  Now there's a cool description which says very little!  For those who don't know, a flying accident years ago left me in an exclusive club, "Wheelchair Using Paraplegics", a club which I would rather have avoided!   The first week in June brings the 20th anniversary of that disabling injury.  It has dominated my life in too many ways and there's no resignation allowed!

In the beginning I did fairly well,  thanking the stars for hands and mind still intact and working hard to regain or enhance impaired  abilities.  People said I was amazing!  I was not.  Looks can be deceiving.  A year later around the accident's first anniversary I finally fell apart.  At that point the enormity of my situation hit home, a not unusual reaction I'm told.  One of the ways I dealt with the problem at that time were attempts to put my feelings about loss and restriction on paper, not writing but drawing.  Here are some of the results.

I never expected to exhibit these in any forum.   The few who have seen them, didn't seem to like them but putting them here seems appropriate.  There is no critical observation, no cool application of pen to paper, no attempt to render the figure with smooth, accurate anatomy.   They are emotional, expressive works.  They are not pretty and, for all I know, may not truly communicate the anguish I was feeling but they are REAL!   I am the subject.