Statements

(San Francisco Studio School, July 26, 2007)

I was asked to discuss the importance of drawing to the visual artist’s practice.

But what is drawing?

I usually have answered that a drawing simply is a work on paper that is not a print or some other mediated image. So I have mostly defined drawing by the media alone.

When asked what I do as an artist, I always say that I make paintings, drawings, and prints, as well as other visual interventions (trying to refer also to my work in performance and film as well.)

But really the media does not define what drawing is. Drawing is the core, the lifeblood, the force, at the center of what I understand as art making in the visual realm.

So what is this ‘drawing’? Drawing is, as I said, the life force that flows out of our very bodies and organizes whatever visual manifestations we realize. At the core of painting is drawing. And the same is true for sculpture. And for whatever it is worth, it also true for printmaking and photography in addition to the list of other medias where art works are created.

So then what is good drawing? Good drawing is being able to articulate, being able to be clear, intentional, and true.

But what do I mean by ‘true’? What I mean is being able to be a clear channel: to be able to bring through the full impulse of being or of the universe, either one or both. Really the two can never be separated.

I will risk the statement that most artists today do not learn to draw, or should I say, to draw well? Learning to draw takes time. And I believe most young artists these days are not taking the time. I think they do not because there are available to them so many easy ways to lay down images without drawing.

What is wrong with this? I would only say that this kind of image making lacks the qualities I stated above: articulateness, intention, and the clear channel that we value in all great art.

At this point I do not want you to get me wrong. I do not consider being able to render the figure (for example) in a classical 19th Century mode necessarily an example of good quality drawing. Learning to draw in the older traditions may or may not lead to good quality drawing. There is, I would argue, no one path leading to quality. And I would even argue that hard or long effort does not necessarily lead to quality. I would argue that the qualities of sincerity and integrity are essential. One artist may find a short path to ‘good’ drawing and another may have a very long route. That is just the way it is.

I also want to be clear that I am not talking about talent when I speak of quality. Some people have the ‘talent’ of rendering forms or likenesses in a way that others ‘recognize’ and may call ‘good’. But this is not quality drawing. Talent is a God given gift. It could be for rendering likenesses or for handling materials or for composing for example, but this is not what defines good drawing. A gift can serve the artist in his/her pursuit, or it can be an obstruction. The qualities that I mentioned of sincerity, integrity, as well as intelligence, will determine along with experience the quality of what an artist does.

And so there is the ‘practice’ of drawing. What is the practice? It is the every day use of drawing. It can be literally putting pencil to paper each day. Or it can be doing something else discerning or discrimating. Also some people need to practice more than others. That is just the way it is. But I would say that the practice of drawing is essential to the art making process.

I use drawing in part to do what I call attunement. I do not make paintings from drawings. In my creative process I work in phases. I like to compare these phases to waves or seasons. I like the image of ebb and flow or of the cycles of the year or of the moon to illustrate what I mean. I will have periods when I am very active and productive followed by periods when I am more reflective and inward. I produce bodies of work in this manner. When I am in a productive period, I will draw in the earlier stages, and by drawing I mean working on paper. I like to say that my drawing leads me. I draw each day, and with it I explore. My drawing guides me.

So what is this drawing I am talking about? I do literally mean working on paper. These drawings are, as I said, attunement. They tune me, focus me, and help me see. This process will lead me to working on canvas in oil paint, another process I love and aspire to. When I paint, I am simply extending the process I was following into another media (drawing). Since I do not make paintings from drawings, the paintings flow from the drawing process. That is all that changes. And so I am still drawing but in a different media. The distinction of media is not that great. Furthermore you will see that many of my drawings on paper are with ink with brush. When I paint, I am drawing. When I am drawing, I am painting.

My prints come last as the wave’s energy begins to spread. Printmaking is a more extended process for me as the energy begins to wind down and is calmer, more considered and reflective. Drawing is still at the core of the prints though. Technicalities simply take over in a more extended fashion. I could talk about printmaking in more detail at another time if you like.

Often people say that my prints look like drawings. And also people have said that my paintings look like drawings, that they are not paintings, but drawings in oil. To that I always can point to many of the great painters I admire. I love the great Japanese painter Sesshu’s work, not to mention many of the greats from the recent past: Matisse, Pollock, for example. My admiration for these artists is not on the basis of what media or category they fall into. It is on the quality alone of their works: i.e.: their articulateness (clarity), their intentionality (strength), their truth (vision and authenticity). These are then qualities of good drawing.

We do not need to have strict definitions of Art by media.

I want to hasten to say that I love drawings. And so we are back to the definition of drawing by media.. Yes, a drawing is a thing on paper. Do I care if it is a ‘study’ or a ‘sketch’? No. I care if I experience a thing of beauty, if it moves me, if it is expressive of the sublime, the profound, and so forth.

Both one mark on a paper or a very labored textured work can do just that. What matters is THAT the experience happens to me, not how it happens. Drawing, as I said, is the life’s blood of art making. It is at the core. And this is the reason for studying drawing. Drawing is inextricably tied to meaning. An artist should never be drawing by rote. The artist should always be searching, inquiring, questioning as she/he draws. This is what is interesting about drawing and why it should be at the core of every visual art practice from the student to the most experienced artist.

The product and process of drawing cannot be separated. And drawing, like Art itself, knows no limit.

Post script: Can drawing be taught?
Yes and no.
Drawing is not a skill.
But can drawing be taught?
Yes.
How?
By pointing the way. Even perhaps by pointing a finger.
No.
Drawing cannot be taught.
Drawing is ineffable (like Art itself).

Whenever you think you know how to draw, you are wrong. It eludes you. (And yet you know what good drawing is, and you can point to it.)

Post script: what about color?
Color is the heart of the matter.
Black and white ARE colors.

Post script: What is painting?
Painting is the mystery.

Post script: Do I think that drawings are always any less great works of art that paintings, or for that matter, sculptures, or prints, photographs, or other works in other media like film or performance?
No.

What inspired me to become a printmaker was the desire to make multiples. While in the MFA program in painting at Columbia I had studied etching with Tony Harrison (also the teacher of Kathan Brown in England) and woodcut with Seong Moy. I had made a few woodblock prints in the first fifteen years after I left school but it was only in the early 1980’s that making prints became an important part of my artistic life.

I had early on developed a consistent strain of black and while work on paper. And it was when I realized that I wanted to make certain images more accessible to people that I found returning to woodblock printing was a natural fit for me. It was not a long step from my ink drawings to my prints, and that step allowed me to refine my images as well as to introduce another element of chance (the wood and its printing accidents).

I welcomed the extended periods of carving after the very intense and spontaneous method I had developed in my drawing. I thought of myself as a painter who made prints, not as a printmaker per se. I never was a good enough printer to feel that I could do it better than a professional printer and I have since then always worked in collaboration with printers.

I would like to make the statement that art is a revelation. It is a revelation of personal vision, of inner experience, of the partially seen (what we only glimpse), of the ineffable, of the spiritual. Art is the communication also of things we find difficult to express in other ways. It is a means to point (like figuratively to point with our finger) to what we find difficult into other parts of our cognitive processes.

So what does this mean about the environment? About Nature? It means that art is a means through which we address nature, our natural world. It is a means through which we inquire and communicate, a means through which we find meaning or the lack of it.

And so what do I think this would mean for you as Environmentalists? It means that preservation of nature is not only for its practical uses, but also just as importantly for its purely esthetic uses- for its continual source of inspiration to us as human beings.

In reflecting on nature, we reflect on ourselves, on the nature of our very being. And through nature, we find not only pleasure, but also wisdom, inspiration, and personal knowledge. And preserving nature, as I am sure you all know, is the same as preserving ourselves.

April 17, 2012

August 3, 2021
“I Interview Myself”

Q: So what are you trying to do, and why?

A. Imitate those whose work inspired me in the museums at an early age
B. Re-experience the transcendent (like I first did in art at age 14)
C. Understand life the deepest way I can
D. Share all that with others- especially others like myself who need it

Q: Why do you think art is important?

A. It isn’t B. It isn’t any more important than any other thing or endeavor

Q: What are you trying to do?

A. I am trying to reach for that “it”- “That is “”it””, That is all…

Q: Why Paint? (Media)

I was naturally drawn to paint. First I loved finger paint. I learned early too- at six. Paint was a matter determined early on or whenever, by accident, by genetics, I don’t know. My Aunt was a portrait painter- studied with Leon Knotl in NYC. There was a lot of art around me while growing up, but I was not expected to be an artist. However I could not be what I was expected to be. Art saved me; I think art can save other people too.

Q: How have you been able to keep going all these years?

A. Perhaps because I am stubborn, perhaps because my Taurus moon is in the first degree. B. I am extremely fortunate- I have been gifted- gifted not by talent but by the generosity of others. I have to say that early on I was extremely ungrateful- and I regret that. However, I try to make up for that now. The greatest gift I have been given is my life as an artist. Well, I might also put my wife of 40 years in that category… The gift as in simply being able to do it- to paint, to do work, to continue- that is the reward, the ultimate reward- I have been gifted. And so, out of this I hope to gift my work.

Q: To Whom?

I realize art needs an audience. So what is my audience? Well, I have always painted for the ages. I have sought not be painting for the very moment- so I have sought ultimate values in my work.

Q: Do you have a family? How did you manage that (raising children) and keep on with your creative work?

A. I can only say that was not easy. I won’t go into the personal part of that here, but will go into some details another time. B. Having a family as well as being married has been a very rich learning experience, as well as a difficult one for which I am very grateful. I believe that raising children is one of the very important and significant things we can do for the world and its future. C. For me, family forced me to go beyond my selfish self- hopefully to move to a deeper sense of self. I was fortunately trained by my wonderful dog Sesshu (1974-1991) that “caring” is a 24/7 job. So I had a little experience before I had my own two children (1984 and 1989). My wife was training me in this way as well. I am so grateful for all that. I feel that all this training has come into my work life.

Q: How is your work not solipsistic?

A. I am engaged in the world. I am socially engaged wherever I live. I am engaged in the issues of the day, I think globally and act locally. This consciousness feeds the meaning of my art (see the subjects of my paintings that are both environment and political, as well as psychological and personal) B. I live much of the year where all the issues of the year are very manifest- homelessness, racism, gun violence, air pollution, and environmental degradation. I participate as much as I can, never feeling I have to make a choice between “acting in the world” and acting in my studio. I hope I can maintain a balance.

Q: How do you maintain a balance between the “inner:” and “outer” life?

A. Ultimately there is no difference or separation. However, that is easier to say than to realize in my life. I am the beneficiary of many spiritual traditions. I have and continue certain practices including yoga and some forms of meditation. I had for many years a special spiritual teacher. I was also raised in a Christian tradition, though generally have not been a “card carrying member” of any church. B. I have appreciated both the ethical and mystical traditions of Christianity.

Q: In Conclusion, how can you sum up a life in the Arts- a long life and one that you seem deeply grateful for?

In a few words: Nature People Art (ART)

Nature- in it’s purity- its essences and its expression in place- specific places and archetypal places.

People- in all their diversity of lives and experiences, both cultural and personal (psychological), people in motion, people alive, changing, moving; people as stories, myths, and the embodiment of culture.

Art- Art as a gift, as a manifestation of the human spirit, and all that it contains.

Questions:

Q: What books did you bring with you here?

A: Grand Union by Wendy Peron, Hiroshima- Three Witnesses, Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The First Love Stories from Isis and Osiris to Tristan and Isulta, Valcamonica Rock Art Parks, Color and the Edgar Casey Readings, Color and Music in the New Age, Goethe’s Approach to Color, The Tarot Revealed, A Complete Guide to the Tarot.

Q: What Art Works do you consider the greatest?

A: Monet’s Water Lilies at the MoMA, Pollack’s One (MoMA), Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa (The Louve). And then there any many artists and their works that I admire greatly: Serrat, Rodin, Clyfford Still, Rothko, Joan Brown, Marlene Dumas, Sesshu (The Japanese artist), Anne Truitt, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, and wall painting from before recorded time.

Q: Who were your most important teachers?

A: Dean Stanbaugh, Morton Sachs, Nick Carone, Walter Murch, John Helicker, Steven Greene, and Syong Moy and Tony Harrison (in printmaking).

Q: You work in many media besides paint: printmaking, drawing, dance, etc. Why do you call yourself a painter?

A: Because painting is my ground of being. It is where I come from and where I always return. I loved painting from an early age- not only doing it, but also seeing it.

Q: What about Skowhegan?

A: I cannot emphasize enough its importance to me. Though it rests on the continuum of my life’s education, it was a turning point in my life. It was where I realized it was possible for me to be an artist. The rest is history as they say.

Early morning on my last day at Skowhegan, Lili, following me with her camera, guided me to a path/ trail on a small ridge in a wooded area beyond the last field above the studios. I heard at first the roar of the traffic in the not too far distance, perhaps the only busy road for miles around, but still present.

As I set out, I set the ground beneath my feet/ and listened/ as my feet one step at a time, felt the rocks and the moss beneath me. The day/ the morning could not have been more lovely as I felt my way along, still beyond the direct sunlight- the sun still relatively low in the morning sky and below the hill to the other side to my right. Soon I came to the first older tree. I do not know the species in this forest, but a deciduous tree. I felt with my left hand its aliveness. I felt it for a good long time and was in good contact with it, eventually feeling its roots beneath my feet and its connections to the other trees close by along the path as if it was communicating to the community that I was there. Along with this I began to feel the trees sense of time, and everything slowed down. As I moved on, my left hand seemed to be most able to connect and feel the trees, both larger and smaller or younger. As I moved along the trail step by step, slowly I looked around and upward. I could see different patches of the forest to my right and to my left- different greens responding to the movement of the light. I thought about painting this forest as I had many times in the past. I entered the sunlight. There was a patch or section along the trail that was fully lit but speckled with the shadow of leaves dispersing the light. The sun was not yet warming me, neither had it been cold in the forest- really an ideal day for comfort. I walked on, pausing at each perception from time to time- step by step- not wanting to hurry, staying in the present. At one point I heard and then saw a bird, which seemed to be chirping at us, but then I heard it had a friend that it was communicating with. And there seemed to be a few more of these birds around. Many times too I stopped or slowed to look up at the trees as they rose- and I felt other trees with my left hand. At times too I used them with my left hand to steady myself, to keep my balance as I walked. The trail was easy enough, but I did not want to stumble. For a moment my mind got ahead of myself, and I started to look forward, and I caught myself and slowed down my walking and brought down my eyes and consciousness to my steps, to the ground, and its softness, and I looked out to the forest. My mind did travel through to my past, to memories, to my first time at Skowhegan, and to my then girlfriend Sharli, but it did not stay there long. That was a memory. That was all, and my mind came back to the light filtering thought the trees- to the green- to the yellow/ green, to the yellows. I rarely saw the sky and didn’t register blue, but only a slightly toned white.

As I walked on, I saw a wooden structure ahead I did not think it was the end of the trail, but Lili called out to me that she was out of film. Lili had followed me, and I had been aware of her behind me but not overwhelmingly so, as her presence was quiet and far from intruding. She had a light presence, and had from the first moment given me the space and the time to experience this part of the Skowhegan woods. I don’t remember looking back at her once she released me to the trail, though I surely was aware she was behind me. When I turned my head right and left, I did not allow my vision to include her filming. So I stopped, turning my vision as she came into my peripheral vision. She told me when we stopped that the structure was probably an artwork in wood- it had lovely texture. We traced our steps along the trail to the car. We chose not to bushwhack a direct route.

My right hand was holding the microphone the whole time, mostly against my chest (my heart?)

My first memory of Mr. Stambaugh is when I was about 8 or 9. He was already good friends with my uncle Carter Hall who also taught at St. Albans. He came by one afternoon to visit my parents. I sat myself opposite him with my paints and paper in my lap. I don’t remember him paying any attention to me then. Shortly after that was my first year at St. Albans (fourth grade or Form C as it was known in the school). We all had art in the 4th, 6th and 8th grades. On the alternate years we had Shop. I liked all these classes. I had no sense from Mr. Stambaugh that I was particularly good at art. My dear friend Gave Farr was very good, very talented. I am not sure now what that meant to me or anyone else. In the Lower School, as I remember, we only worked in water color, water color cubes in a small metal box with only three colors (basic red, yellow and blue). And so we learned how to make all the colors of the spectrum from those three colors as well as how to control a rather difficult medium with just water.

When we entered Upper School (high school), art was an elective. Not every one took art any more. I took art every year and two studio classes a day my senior year( thanks to having satisfied all my requirements already). I clearly loved the art classes and did not get any particularly great encouragement. I was quickly graduated much to my surprise to painting in oils which I continued to use then and do to this day. It is interesting to me that he had us paint also with a limited number of colors , the same ones Van Gogh used and which he told us was all w needed to make any colors with.

What did Mr. Stambaugh teach? I almost might say he did not teach. He nurtured. He created an environment into which we could create art. And it was truly all about art. But more than that he created a world and really a world view. His classrooms were famously filled with bird cages and plants. And then there was the art created by the other students. I came of age in the shadow of earlier STA students, all of whom I revered in some respect or other. Most of those did not go on to become artists in the rest for their lives, but I knew every one of their styles and could recognize it easily. Of course there was Hib Sabin, much older than me, who had a very great talent early on and who we all painted in the shadow of. But there were many others whose styles remain vivid to me to today: For example Tom Gleason with his deep violet shadows, Brown Miller with his characteristic Ultramarine blues, Peter Gessell, who painted only in earth colors, which I understood was because he was color bllind, Ed Reustow, Sandy Larson and on and on. That too is an example of Mr. Stambaugh’s teaching, not disqualifying someone because he could not utilize the usual palette, not elevating one style like Ruestow’s over another one like Gleason’s. There were many others before me whom I followed. I can name more. I leaned from them all.

And then there was the art room also full of music and magazines with images as well as birds and plants.

We were encouraged to paint from images in magazines and photographs, mostly nature if we were at a loss as to what to paint. He did not emphasize working from life. I would usually come back at the end of the summer with photographs I had taken and then painted from them. As my high school years progressed , I also experimented with surrealism, hot at the time. We did not have available a lot of art books, but Mr. Stamabough took us to museums and encouraged us to go on our own. My most memorable experience with him was at the Phillips Collection . He took our whole class. Most of the others were wandering off right away but I stuck close to him. I remember standing next to him, still very small beside him, while he showed me a Braque still life, telling me to cover with one finger a certain white mark and telling me that this mark makes the whole painting. He said without it the painting would not “work”. I never forgot that . What did he teach us? Actually I think he taught us abstraction, taught us what made up a painting, and that was not representation. We would set to work on anything of our choosing. Later he would come around and make a suggestion here and there. Finally we might show him a work and he would say yes , it is finished: it “worked” or even great praise was it was a “corker”.

But that is not all. He communicated (and believed ) that what we were doing was important. He was even fierce, adamant, and judgmental about that and communicated that not only to us but to the school as well. I think that is why particularly Canon Martin respected and supposed the art program even if he did not fully understand it. This is also a major reason why I have given my life to this activity: art.

There is more I can say about Mr. Stambaugh’s gift to all of us. His amazing exhibition that he organized for the 50th anniversary of the school in 1959 is almost unimaginable today. We had about 50 amazing and valuable paintings in our gymnasium. I got to see close up works by the likes of such varied luminaries as Pollock, Rothko, Ivan Albright and Milton Avery. He also championed the outsiders at school and was proud when a football player was a committed student of his, like Ed Smith.

No on can fail to mention his striking appearance which we all took for granted . He reminded me later of pictures I saw of Marsden Harley. Also his face reminded me of the head of Jon Marin by Lachaise in the Phillips. But appearance is secondary to the aura that he exuded, a powerful influence in its own right and one that many of us were drawn to and aspired to be close to.

I want to mention one other aspect of his “teaching”. He encouraged us to work out side of the required class times and told us that that is where the real progress can be made. I experienced this profoundly one afternoon in the art room after school when I was about 14. Something special happened while I was painting, something that I have carried with me all my life and is central to me even to this day. It was the result of the world that M. Stambaugh created as much or more than any particular thing he taught.

I must also mention that there was somewhat a particular STA style of painting back in those days. It was painterly and had to have been influenced somewhat by Impressionism and landscape painting. That had to have been part of what Mr. Stambaugh nurtured. And yet none of that is reflected in his own work aside from the fact he painted in nature. None of us ever painted in his style . He deliberately would not let us see his work. He told us he did not want to influence us. We should find and create our own way.