Lets talk a bit about your process, I know your work has multiple layers and each layer seems to get sanded in some way – what brought you to such a complex approach to building your images?
Some of this question is attended in responses below Repeating the mark, or the drip, scraping, burnishing, builds a physical history within the painting I’ve used this example in the past, but it is still the best way that i know to explain; when you see worn stone steps, whether at an Anasazi site, or the Met, it is interesting to consider the scores of people that have used or using the steps in roughly the same way or seeing the keys on an old piano, worn with use. You realize that you are just part of the stream of history, a large or small part, but you are only moving through It is a humbling, and revealing realization I try to create the same in a painting The painting looks worn, (because it is) I repaint the painting sometimes 150 times, each time removing what I can, the linen is stretched at about the same tightness as the palm of one’s hand, I’m pushing on that, it pushes back, I burnish, paint, drip, remove, burnish until it all comes together in an unexplainable way I try to locate the viewer in a history, or at least make them aware of the stream.
On top of the surface work – you clearly are concerned with showing how your work is attached to the support structure How or why did this develop as a key element to your work?
Maybe this has a little to do with the history above Every aspect of the experience of painting and viewing is as important as any part The stretcher plays a role that is as important as the painting of a zinc white stroke, fixing the linen with handmade copper tacks instead of shooting stables through the linen into the wood, is a philosophical choice Using Basswood instead of pine, every edge is slightly rounded so it feels good in the hands when you pick up a painting Using expansion corners so the stretch of the linen retains the feel of the palm of the hand regardless of being in the desert or with the humidity of the coast. There is a beauty in that, a craft, a care, conscience decisions being made that maybe helps one to be aware of the possibility of the sublime (I can’t believe i’m using that word), the over all effect that the painting somehow transcends the everyday physical world.
I know that you often get compared to Agnes Martin, however I think comparisons like that are a bit of a cop out (even though I used it as well), I see a lot of different things in the approach of what is painted on – and the residue of its sanding off Who were some of the artists that influenced you in the earlier formation of your work?
Dame Agnes It is odd, and I am a little perplex by the comparisons I respond to her paper pieces, the delicate water colours, the grids, how she uses paper. I’ve had a more difficult time with her paintings, I really haven’t looked close at that body of work, sure I see them, but they just don’t hold enough interest for me, strange as it seems, there just isn’t enough there for me I’m more interested in the Dame Agnes phenomena, how Agnes Martin became Dame Agnes, living in our small town That is interesting.
Serious influences, Brice was a major one for a number of reasons So much has been written about him over the years, but from the viewpoint of an artist who’s education and development is placed specifically in a time period in which AbstractExpression was feeling somewhat over-used, and minimalism was beginning to overlap. Having professors that were AE, and some that were first gen out of Germany (Bauhaus). I was working in a minimalist direction, but as a painter. I was concerned with the painting as an object Ellsworth Kelly, the black and early metallic paintings of Frank Stella were really quite important and ground breaking I wanted the painting to both be an read as an object, and I also wanted the paint to utilize the AbEx language, ie the paint stroke to express something that was non-verbal and to add another complexity, Maleovich, Kindensky, and Zen artist, (Japan, Korea), begin to add a spiritualism that I couldn’t separate, from the object and non-verbal expression It sounds a bit silly now, but in the late 60s as an artist trying to find his way, it was a monumental task, there were no footprints to follow. Brice Marden really made the leap with the monochrome panels. The physicality, the object, but with expression; marks in the encaustic, and importantly, the drips as the bottom. This was before Post-Modernism opened everything up.
Then he did it again, with the Cold Mountain series exhibited at Dia in the 80’s. Brice added line to plane, with spiritualism as an underpinning.
FootPrints.
but…
Inspiration: Nature, the desert/mountain environment. Barrier Canyon Style rock art, amazing painting, so complex but direct. The Great Gallery in HorseShoe Canyon is one of my all time favorite pieces of art, the most powerful visual statement that I’ve ever seen It has been dated at 5000BC- 200BC. It is in Utah. Several Anasazi panels in our FourCorners area, including a beautiful panel just down the road from my casa, in the RioGrande Gorge. The burnishing of the pottery found around these sites. The burnishing was done to harden the surface before glazing was used. The surface is incredible, it is the inspiration for my burnished surface.
The images below are from an excursion to a site in Utah that i keep returning to, these were taken a few days ago. They are mixed cultures of Freemont, BarrierCanyon, Anasazi, (and some early century cowboy vandalism).
With the long timeline of your painting process, do you find yourself wanting to follow new directions, but maybe realizing that the new direction will not be able to be followed – possibly for months Does something like that influence your decision making and how do work with that if it does?
For instance, I’m working currently on a series of grid paintings, no drips. The dominate axis is vertical instead of horizontal. The vertical lines dominate, the horizontals seem like they are in an atmosphere well behind the verticals It feels like a Vermeer interior atmosphere. I began working on those about 3 years ago, along with the drip pieces, knowing that they will dominate what I do in the future, but I wasn’t finished with the drip pieces, and had no desire to stop painting those. Again, the transition that occurs in my work is an evolution, ‘the stream’. I also work with Tamarind Prints (litho), and SantaFe Editions (digital) to work out concepts on paper before moving to linen.
I recently read in the Brice Marden catalog for his recent show at MoMa that location can play a huge difference on the color and saturation of his paintings Working in the
south-westen US Does location influence your work?
In terms of location; it is huge. Nature informs my work. I spent so many years working in a place that I didn’t respond to, thinking it didn’t really matter much. I lived in Maine, I was in nyc alot, I found I was traveling to the SouthWest every chance that I got. The light, the culture, the archeology, the desert, mountains. It was austere, real, exposed, but mysterious, it was not a casual place that you just were. It was a spiritual experience experiencing a rock art panel that was 2000-5000 years old, that is more affecting then any piece of art that i’ve ever seen. In 1994 I spent another year on grant at Roswell, my work really solidified, it wasn’t like it really changed, it just became more powerful, it began to have that feeling of ‘experiencing the rock art panel’, or ‘experiencing the desert’, it became still, real, and a unique experience My studio has 12′ glass doors that face a 13,000′ mountain, to one side of that is Taos Mt the sacred mt. It is an unobstructed view. That view feeds me, everytime that I look up.
When I moved from Maine in ’99 the underpinnings of my current work had been in place for about 10 years. I built a studio, and added a second room to my small adobe. This took almost a year, 2 native americans worked with me. When I moved into the studio, the first work that I did, (for Site SantaFe), was surprising in it’s austerity, focus, and power It was work that I could not have done in Maine. The brightness of the light seem to manifest itself in the predominance of the whites, which also focused and grounded the work. Colour became quite subtle. (much like the environment I was working in). The drips seem to take on an additional meaning in the desert where water is precious. Most of my marks created an additional effect naturally, as in the transitions of opacity of the whites, which is a result of process, all of which is more efficient, which is how one lives in the desert. These are paintings that are located specifically, but responded to by a pretty large audience.
What artists are you currently looking at?
Those unknown artists 5000 years ago that painted and burnished the rocks around me.
I thought the Robert Mangold show ‘Pillars’ was interesting. Brice Marden, Wes Mills, Stuart Arends, Ellsworth Kelly, Vermeer, early Robert Ryman, James Turrell, Donald Judd in Marfa, Texas I’m not seeing much work by younger artists that really affects my spirit, I see some cleaver, interesting work, but at the end of the day, it usually does not change me someway.
What’s next (upcoming shows, etc)?
A book is being published, released in october Large format, approx 300 pages, designed by Skolkin + Chickey, foreword written by Douglas Dreishpoon, (Knox-Albright), and the main text written by Carter Ratcliff There are limited editions including one with a small painting, also one with a panel mounted print. I have a show with Stephen Haller, nyc; in October There are several things happening in 08 and 09, which is as far as I want to see my life organized!
