When I paint, I still have that feeling of "I don't know what I'm doing." But as my friend, the watercolorist
Eva Bender, pointed out to me recently, if I had it all figured out, I probably wouldn't want to do it anymore. Since it's endlessly mysterious, it's endlessly alluring.
I did one with wind in the trees where I feel like the the wind is there in the movement, and the cool feeling of the grey/violet day is there in the colors...
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| View Across Pond, Windy Trees |
Maybe that's all I'm ever looking for? I don't know. I keep wondering: Too realistic? That is, boringly representational? But I need to give that up: my aesthetic, and my emotional connection to painting, is tied to representation (-alism). But I'm always questioning how far to spool out. Maybe the answer, or the organizing principle anyway, could be: As far as possible, without making mishmash. Though I like Joan Mitchell's mishmash. But her work has less to do with moment/atmosphere/place than I want. And as Robert Henri said, the idea is to do something no one else has done.
When I look at really wild and suggestive stuff, sometimes I want to go there. Again, toward things that look like marks on a page, with an empty background. But more, I want to get close to what Monet was doing—responding wildly, but with a passionate involvement in something, not in himself. I keep thinking: I want to "give life to" something, rather than impose myself on it.
