Here is another very brief on-line conversation that I had with a fellow painter, which outlines first his ideas on 'justifying every mark' on the canvas, when painting, followed by my opposing viewpoint. As interesting as our opposing viewpoints, in my opinion, is the fact that both of us are producing decent work, and have respect for one-another's output, in spite of our very different ways of working.
Sunday, December 15, 2002, 3:39:54 PM, Alan wrote:
AT> It is the way I was taught. 'Be able to justify every mark.', they said. I
AT> agreed. What is the point of doing anything if you cannot justify your
AT> actions? That is the way I work. You can home in on any square 1/8th of an
AT> inch of any of my paintings and ask 'Why?' and I can tell you. That mark
AT> would not be there if I could not answer the question. I work like that, I
AT> agree with the philosophy. I see no point in making marks that have no
AT> justification, they are a waste of resources - paint, time, effort. One
AT> should be able to say why any one of a million brush strokes was made. If
AT> not, why make that brush stroke?
To which I replied:
I couldn't paint this way; it is anathema to my nature. I can't write this way, either. The only thing that I do entirely this way, is write programming language code.
For me, too much of painting (and to a considerably lesser degree, writing) is bound up in areas that are outside the complete control of my conscious awareness.
When I am writing, I know generally what I want to say, and I sit down at a keyboard and spit it out, with little to no consideration of why the words go where they do, what the rules of grammar are, etc... unless I see an error, that requires correcting. When I occasionally lose something that I was writing, like when the computer program freezes, and I haven't saved... I just start over again at the beginning, and say what I wanted to say all over again... but never using the exact same wording, or sentence structure... in fact, I may even make additions and subtractions from the original post, since it is something of a second draft. If I had to justify ever word, and comma, I would not be able to... and yet, I communicate quite nicely.
With painting, I am about ten times more fluent than I am with writing, which means that the work comes out so naturally, and is so entirely non-verbal, that I have no verbal explanation whatsoever to offer for it, most of the time. It looks right, it feels right, it's right... and I am off working on the next piece, without any introspection at all. Introspection comes later, when I am photographing the work, and preparing it for my website, where it first encounters words, in the form of a title, and short commentary. Occasionally, much later, it might receive more verbal introspection, as the subject (or adjunct to) an essay.
If I had to sit down and explain why the paint was on the canvas the way it was, I could not. If a near-finished canvas fell off the easel, and was punctured, and destroyed, I would easily be able to put another canvas up there... not even necessarily the same size, or proportions, and 'rewrite' the piece, although, just like the lost written composition, above, it would almost certainly be different in many ways, from the 'first draft'. If I had to justify every stroke, and spot of colour (or absence thereof), I would be no more capable of that, than of justifying every word, and comma, while writing. Still, I am able to communicate quite well in paint.
If someone asked me to justify every mark on a painting, I might be able to... if they were willing to accept my reply in a visual, and non-verbal form... I would simply paint another painting, and tell them (heh) that it explained quite succinctly, all of the marks made, in the construction of the previous painting.
Fact is, this might actually be closer to the truth than I realise (since I am kidding). Painting is a process for me, and to a large degree, each painting is a continuation of the one that came before.