I suppose I ought to explain something: For some obtuse reason, I feel I put alittle too much effort into a painting to simply dash off, leaving theviewer with a quick explanation of what is surface-level obvious. Nope… Ifigure I’d rather torture myself by doing two things at the same time;first, plumb my soul to come up with something truly powerful, and second,for it to have a character of personal uniqueness that appropriatelytranslates what I am saying with the piece. Something that causes inplaybetween artist and viewer. Yeah, that’s it. Push things in an interestingdirection.
At times, dragging out the name can be tough — I don’t get them for free.The process can be scary as hell. After all, painting is a black hole, acompression of many different emotions; pain, misery, elation, exploration– so why not reach deep within those personal depths to name the piece? Whynot cause myself misery and sift through my drama? — by the way, where’s mytherapist?
Maybe I could have gotten poetic andwinged off something like “Windblown Wavelets and Reflective Cud-Chewing”,but I’d be afraid that naming it so would be a case of anything meaninganything and nothing at the same time…
No, whatever I had to say about my painting had to say something about ALLof the painting. It had to say something about the machine. The flag. Thestone-faced riders with attitude — no, pride. The drama. I want to saysomething about one thing. I want to say something about everything. It hadto say speak BEYOND the painting. I wanted it to address something Iresponded to when I conceived the image — the PASSION. And I wanted it tospeak to the culmination of 100 years of what “IT” was all about — andspeak to what it will be.
So, I sat and stared at it for a while. Just like I did when it was a whitecanvas… except not as nervous (because I didn’t have to think how manyways I could destroy a perfectly clean, white canvas). A thought… scribbleit down and wait for the next candidate to appear. Then scribble that down.Flail myself for the next one and scribble that down.
Slowly, a list was compiled and reviewed. And there,in the midst of a long line of drunks, dropouts and derelicts, it shone:”Great Doings”.
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