Category: chaos

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Starting and searching

Rock Study, 11X14, by Carol L. Douglas. I did this rock study with my pal Bruce Bundock and hated it at the time. I love it today.
I admire the well-planned, carefully-drafted, meticulously-executed painting, but something happens between the time I start and the time I finish. A furious spirit overtakes me that drives me irresistibly in the opposite direction.
This is why I’m very reluctant to wipe out all but the absolute worst starts. In so many cases, what I thought was bad five years ago has turned out to be pivotal in my evolution as a painter. I’ve come to listen to my ‘bad’ paintings; they’re usually trying to tell me something.
Rockport, 9X12, by Carol L. Douglas.
Textile artist Jane Bartlett sent me the list below, which was (according to the Internet) found among Diebenkorn’s papers after his death in 1993. I haven’t corrected the spelling or punctuation, even though they pain me.
Notes to myself on beginning a painting (by Richard Diebenkorn)
1. attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.
2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued — except as a stimulus for further moves.
3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.
4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.
5. Dont “discover” a subject — of any kind.
6. Somehow don’t be bored — but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.
7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position.
8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.
9. Tolerate chaos.
10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

Rock Tumble, 16X20, unframed, by Carol L. Douglas
I will be teaching in Acadia National Park next August. Read all about it here, or download a brochure here. 
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Mastering chaos

Francis Bacon is the icon of messy-studio advocates. He was renowned as much for the awful state of his studio as for his brilliant painting, but he did occasionally attempt to clear it. Electrician Mac Robertson was working at Bacon’s studio when he saw the artist disposing of ephemera. He asked to keep it, and thirty years later, sold it for more than a million dollars. There’s a lesson in that, but I hardly know what it is. 

For the first time since June I am home without another trip (planned or emergency) on my immediate horizon. It’s autumn and my favorite season to paint, and I will get outside to do that, but my primary goal has to be to pull my studio and home in order for fall.

There is a myth that creatives enjoy working in chaos, but that isn’t true. All people tend to create messes when in the throes of work, but most of them understand that when they are finished, they need to clean them up. Creating order doesn’t come easily to me, but as an adult I’ve learned it’s the only way I can be productive.
Contemporary Australian painter McLean Edwards continues the Bacon tradition in his Sydney studio. If I were his mother, I’d tell him to clean that mess up, and to stop drinking while painting.
I think this idea of the messy artist is a continuation of the myth of artists-as-geniuses, and it actually stops many people from being as productive as they might otherwise be. The vast majority of us do not thrive in chaotic working and living conditions. I’ve been in many of my peers’ studios, and most of them are sensible, organized workrooms. (In some cases, what an outsider perceives as clutter is actually just order in a very small space.)
I would normally “reset” my studio and workshop in the early fall anyway—go through my stock, winnow supplies, and reorganize shelves. For me, chaos effectively blanks out all thinking, and I like the idea of spring and fall cleaning.
To the contrary, note that Jackson Pollock’s chaos was pretty much confined to his canvases. 
This year, it’s worse, because my RIT show was pulled for being obscene, and the work ended up stacked in the middle of my studio floor. At a loss about how to put it away in a hurry, I moved it to my bedroom, where it’s still in the way. Until I get it properly stored, there’s no easy living in my house.
On top of that, there are three months of mail to go through, and three months of dirt to vacuum. (My family did a decent job of maintaining order, but the finer points of housekeeping are beyond them.)

Message me if you want information about next year’s classes and workshops.