Today was designated a fun day. (not that everyday hasn’t been fun) One of my goals for this residency is to learn how to “play” more in the studio. I totally get it intellectually, but, in practice, I am not so great at it. Early on, it dawned on me that being in the gallery business affected my “merrymaking.” I was always moving towards the framed image(s) on the wall. A dangerous place to be for inventiveness. I have to admit that “presentation” remains important to me. I am more interested in setting the table than preparing the meal.
So, PLAY was the name of the day. I cranked up Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense (live) on Spotify. My morning project was to channel Frank Auerbach and his figurative work.. Since I had no sitter, I used my face. It was a reckoning to stare at myself on the computer screen but Auerbach felt you have paint over and over to get to the soul of your sitter - sometimes he scraped off 100 layers striving to get it right.
For sure - I am not a figure painter much less, an expert in anatomy and I am not going to be here for months so I let the lines in my face lead me. Frank Auerbach is a genius in making painting an “event”. Take a moment to look at his work - hauntingly beautiful. And me……
Scary, but here you go:
I know,… you think I am sexy,,,you want to date me, Seriously, I have always thought I had George Washington’s profile, hence my cut-out wig. Ok So I took a left turn here about the exercise but interesting to see that white shape against the painted surface. I will keep working on the painting and working on not making sense.
A little sidebar- from Nicholas Wroe’s review of Frank Auerbach in the Guardian (2015)
He has very few memories of his childhood before coming to the UK but does recall being given a colouring book and some watercolours when he was three or four and “the feeling of the wet brush going into the colour, and then on to the page”.
Do you have a creative memory?