POST #133: TALK TO ME, BABY!

Oil and charcoal on canvas
6'x4' 2016

For more than twenty years, I taught Art History at the Stamford Campus of the University of Connecticut. (We locals called it “the Branch,” a concept frowned upon by the hierarchy in Storrs.) I remember putting on “performances” in front of my class, designed to entrance the sweet, young people who sat in front of me for more than two hours at a time. The least I could do was make the subject interesting for them.  I always looked for stories about art that would “humanize” what could have been dreadfully dull. One of the anecdotes I loved to tell was one about Donatello, an early Renaissance sculptor famous for making his statues lifelike. The story goes that Donatello was working on a life–size figure of a prophet for the Cathedral of Florence. Because of the subject’s bald head, the piece was nicknamed Zuccone, or “pumpkin-head” and according to the story, the sculptor would scream at it, commanding “Speak! Damn You. Speak!”T Ironically enough, the piece, one of the greatest works of all time, does “speak” to you, although not in a very pleasant tone of voice.   

Oil and charcoal on canvas
6'x4' 2016

I’m a painter of people. I like to think of myself as a Humanist rather than an Abstractionist, or a Social Realist, or a cubist, although I recently digressed (temporarily) into a series of dream-like paintings of New York City rooftops. I’m back on track now, creating a cast of characters I consider successful only if, like “pumpkin-head,” they “talk to me.”  Unfortunately however, this makes me an outlier in the current art world. Humanism went out of fashion in the late 1950s when anything that smacked of liberal thinking (like Humanism) was declared un-American - and it never came back.  Humanism is the thread that runs through all my work. Sometimes my art is clearly satirical, but even then, it’s affectionate such as my “Developer series,” or “Men’s Bathhouse” series, or my Local Mayors, or the maquette for “George Washington, Father of his Country” (surrounded by pregnant women,) My humor isn’t angry, unlike the work of the German satirist, George Grosz; my characters may be despicable creeps, but they sorta grow on you.

Oil and charcoal on canvas
6'x4' 2016

Lately, I’ve gone back to painting people. I never use models or preparatory sketches; there are enough characters rattling around in my head not to need them. I tone a large canvas (usually 6’x4’) in shades of umber and then begin to draw in charcoal, pulling figures from my subconscious. Each one is treated as a shape and each shape coordinates with shapes around it. It’s a juggling act: the first shape is easy to manage; the next one a little harder. After that, everything must “work” with what has gone before and, as the drawing gets more and more complicated, more difficult to hold together. The problem now is when to stop; when is enough “enough.” One superfluous line can ruin everything. That’s why I use soft charcoal; it’s easily removed until I decide to apply fixative and then there’s no going back.

But when am I actually done?

It’s when the image “feels right,” tells me it’s time to walk away. It also has to “speak to me!” Like Donatello, I want my creations to come to life.