Control? (Prologue)

Ahh – I’m undertaking something new.  I’ve moved materials and food into an underused room in our house, and will sequester myself for three full days – I’ll have a bed, bathroom, phone, and computer, but no caffeine nor alcohol, and no commitments to do anything at any time.  (I realize that some folks have faced this for months now, and that others could never do this because of childcare or eldercare requirements.) 

My main task is to try to figure out how to need less of a sense of control – maybe figure out why control is so important to me.  Less control would make me less “high-strung,” would reduce my (I think normal) fear of death, and would probably help my art work.

"My life right now"

I’ve just recorded my first video clip — readers can actually hear the voice that my students suffered under for 40 years of lectures! This PBS resource is a great source of inspiration: PBS American Portrait. “Everybody has a story. Tell yours.”

“The conversation we didn’t have”

Mental and visual travels

After five months working at home and painting interior scenes, I've spent the past ten days mentally in Marion County, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley (Salem is the county seat, but the old, still operating farmsteads are east of I-5).  In June 2017 and 2018, I toured that countryside for hours.  Immediately outside the municipal boundaries of Sublimity, I spied the farmstead that I've now painted three times (here’s the first rendering).  I’m repeatedly drawn to the complex concatenation of human-built shapes and structures, the imprint of human economy on the landscape, and the wide-open landscape itself.

Before tackling the subject again, I wanted to learn more about the place.  Despite its relatively small area for a western US county, Marion County is a big-time agriculture producer.  According to the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (2014), Marion County has 

the nation's highest acreage devoted to blackberries,
the nation's highest acreage devoted to boysenberries,
the nation's highest acreage devoted to hazelnuts, 
the the nation's second highest acreage devoted to grass seed,
the nation's second highest acreage devoted to hops, and overall 
ranks 36th in the value of agricultural products among all 3000 US counties.

The marionberry is named for the county -- which itself is named for the US Revolutionary War figure Francis Marion.  That's odd, because Francis Marion was known as "the swamp fox" for his successful maneuvers through the swampland that surrounds my hometown (Florence SC) on two sides.  The state university in Florence SC is Francis Marion University.

My goal was to learn what is grown on that huge clayey field in front of the farmstead -- which was in this tilled, tan-clay condition both times I've stopped and taken photos.  Conclusion: it's almost certainly ryegrass, grown for seed. 

Now, I wanted to paint that scene filled with tall grass.  After some trials on small panels, I realized that the “stars” of the original scene need to be the complicated accretion of buildings, the vast field, and the large sky.  This latest version differs from the previous one primarily in the horizon line, 50mm lower in general, and even a touch lower on the left, because I wanted it to intersect the implied door of the leftmost structure.

I developed a different composition to feature masses of waving grass -- that became Marion County.  I wanted to show you both of these just-completed paintings.

Speaking visually

This month, I retired from my university position, receiving the title Professor Emeritus.  My goal now is to become a person, rather than an occupation, living rather than preparing for a next step.

There is so much and yet, so little to say about our manifold crises.  A friend called me recently, overwrought with emotion, and said “the most important things cannot be said, but must be shown.”  A philosopher, he cited the final proposition in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus:  “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”  But the Tractatus was concerned with the limits of logic expressed through verbal language, and specifically omitted other forms of expression.  I’m glad I’ve now moved my focus from words to visual expression, for I have no words for the longstanding conditions that manifest themselves in our current crises.

 I spent the spring indoors, refashioning my classes for remote instruction, grading, painting, working on university issues, and grading some more.  My painting focused on interior scenes – walls, ceilings, and floors.  Here’s a photo of some of those Divoc paintings, all on 12”x 12” wood panels. 

Here’s another set of Divoc panels, which replace rectilinear forms and perspective for two curves.  An insider note for newsletter readers:  all four of these compositions are based on the same two curves in the same relationship with each other.

Finally, another panel, this one depicting a surreal landscape I call Red Giant.  I take some solace from the fact that despite pestilence, genocide, and ecological destruction, the earth itself will remain for another 4 billion years, until our sun expands to become a red giant, likely engulfing the three innermost planets, including our own. 

Red Giant, acrylic on hardwood panel, 12” x 12” x 1.5”

I’ll end this message with hopes that you find ways to use the current crises to grow and to help us all thrive.