Two Black Dogs

In the infancy of my studies and work in NYC, while massive and powerful instruction struck hard blows with its manifestos of painted space & space in paint & funerals of perspective & births of sudden muses & Piero & Puvis & the rash of Ponty, I stayed my course, erect at my Studio 44 tapping out sequences and clusters of pica imprints that would seem to dilute that religion. Words failing to really puncture fell to the surface of my yellowed onion skin leaves; words weak like me but set hard in my indifference to paint. The skin of painting that They Said

traced histories in broad minutiae
portrayed psyche and instinct as delvable passage
up and heightened or down and dulled its message in transparent strata
could resurrect the past and set the present anew
could be scraped away and held still a substantial presence

I declined the sermons of those slapping solvent-drenched beer-sot bullies. “Tap toh toh tap tap, tap tap tap” the Olivetti spoke, etching my meaningless yet non-toxic protests on their solvency.

Why would anyone wish to impose an “all-knowing” on my intrepid route through trial and understanding?

–Belle Pontus, from the Blue Journal, Belle and the Making of Her Mode

“……As Bledyard said, each must find his own way.  And as you said, his remarks are too abstract.  The answer to him is the works themselves.  And your answer is your work.  When you’re not distracted by theories, when you’re alone with the work, you know what you have to do, and at least in what direction perfection lies.”    

–Iris Murdoch The Sandcastle

I set the book onto my lap with a faint growl and a weak shrug.  The passage reminded me of those too many days in the studio when the disorderly perfection of abandon lay before me on the canvas, on the sheet of paper, unconscious knots of line and flow untied and strewn, messy genius they seemed to me at the moment, teetering on fulfillment, passionately disturbing, alive and free. Then the daemons corrected my eyes:  the daemon of my academic study, the daemon of theories, the daemon of design, the daemon of self-conscious, the daemon of my skill, and the daemon of doubt.  As always, I dressed my daemons and re-entered the work, adeptly fashioning it into a more practical, sublime mediocrity.  

There is still space to correct such destructions.

(image:  untitled watercolor, 40” x 26 ½ “ )