Comments on: A long period of silence, but definitely not inactivity. http://www.signapse.co.uk/2010/07/30/a-long-period-of-silence-but-definitely-not-inactivity/ Everything starts with drawing Tue, 07 Feb 2012 05:48:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: doug http://www.signapse.co.uk/2010/07/30/a-long-period-of-silence-but-definitely-not-inactivity/#comment-2814 doug Sat, 31 Jul 2010 09:18:32 +0000 http://www.signapse.co.uk/2010/07/30/a-long-period-of-silence-but-definitely-not-inactivity/#comment-2814 Hey Bill - another bit of shared horizon here, although I sense that the work for both of us is changing. You said "good to be immersed in a kind of painting where not only the imagery but the very process required long uninterrupted weeks of painting." That's it - what is important is immersion in the process. For you there is the discipline of a physical journey. I'm searching for another kind of immersion as well, Have spent our time since Orkney and Skye trying to pare away the unnecessary stuff as much as I can. Not easy because I relish studio complications so much. Trying to graft the painting and printmaking directly onto drawing rootstock. Here's the trigger words from my journal : Gather. Concentrate. Simplify. Trust first marks. Speak directly and completely. I'm now on an 6 week run up to a show in Brighton. Time will tell. Hey Bill - another bit of shared horizon here, although I sense that the work for both of us is changing. You said

“good to be immersed in a kind of painting where not only the imagery but the very process required long uninterrupted weeks of painting.”

That’s it - what is important is immersion in the process. For you there is the discipline of a physical journey. I’m searching for another kind of immersion as well, Have spent our time since Orkney and Skye trying to pare away the unnecessary stuff as much as I can. Not easy because I relish studio complications so much. Trying to graft the painting and printmaking directly onto drawing rootstock. Here’s the trigger words from my journal : Gather. Concentrate. Simplify. Trust first marks. Speak directly and completely. I’m now on an 6 week run up to a show in Brighton. Time will tell.

]]> By: Bill Brody http://www.signapse.co.uk/2010/07/30/a-long-period-of-silence-but-definitely-not-inactivity/#comment-2813 Bill Brody Sat, 31 Jul 2010 04:57:59 +0000 http://www.signapse.co.uk/2010/07/30/a-long-period-of-silence-but-definitely-not-inactivity/#comment-2813 Well, Doug I'm back from some time spent on Beaver Creek, an officially recognized wild and scenic river. It was wild enough and scenic enough and remote enough so my head got a bit cleared out. I got some decent work done and some more decent work started that relates strongly with the work we did together on Skye. But more than the work and the travel, I got to do some solid thinking about the best of my work before I started plein air landscape, when it was intuitive, hermeneutic, self-referential and awe-inspired by the proximity to death. When the formal relationships were so very clever mixing extreme figure/ground reversals with imagery of sex/death/transfiguration/clouds. It felt so good to be immersed in a kind of painting where not only the imagery but the very process required long uninterrupted weeks of painting. Doing plein air painting on a large scale in the wilderness is somehow like that, being so in the moment, so contingent on the now. In both cases I was very into the work and very unmindful of the "art". When I was griping about doing what I was supposed to do, I as complaining about the urging to do modestly scaled landscape images with clean and clear colors; with little explicit sub-liminal nudity and sexuality. I don't enjoy the vapid much and when I am under pressure I have the strong tendency to squirt off in a different direction like a pinched watermelon seed. Well, Doug I’m back from some time spent on Beaver Creek, an officially recognized wild and scenic river. It was wild enough and scenic enough and remote enough so my head got a bit cleared out. I got some decent work done and some more decent work started that relates strongly with the work we did together on Skye. But more than the work and the travel, I got to do some solid thinking about the best of my work before I started plein air landscape, when it was intuitive, hermeneutic, self-referential and awe-inspired by the proximity to death. When the formal relationships were so very clever mixing extreme figure/ground reversals with imagery of sex/death/transfiguration/clouds. It felt so good to be immersed in a kind of painting where not only the imagery but the very process required long uninterrupted weeks of painting. Doing plein air painting on a large scale in the wilderness is somehow like that, being so in the moment, so contingent on the now. In both cases I was very into the work and very unmindful of the “art”. When I was griping about doing what I was supposed to do, I as complaining about the urging to do modestly scaled landscape images with clean and clear colors; with little explicit sub-liminal nudity and sexuality. I don’t enjoy the vapid much and when I am under pressure I have the strong tendency to squirt off in a different direction like a pinched watermelon seed.

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