Third Avenue De Kooning

A view of Third Avenue near Douglass in Brooklyn, which I could call a homage to De Kooning, given the graffiti at the upper right, which reminds me of his black and white paintings of the late 1940s.

Under the Gowanus and Changing with de Kooning

A particularly successful composition masquerading as a 9x12 oil painting of an automobile under the Gowanus Expressway somewhere around 24th Street.  Though I am now working on a South End painting, I feel compelled to return to Brooklyn, since there is no place like it that I know. I will be alternating with the emphasis on Brooklyn.

The following is a succinct quote from the Shiff book on de Kooning, a book you must read if you have any inclination towards de Kooning as a painter:

"'You have to change to stay the same.' Although de Kooning maintained variants of this thought throughout his life ('I like the type more than the original.'), it is as good a candidate for his final thought as any.  We associate the statement with his last decade of his productivity, the 1980s; this is when he repeated it with the greatest frequency.  Such a thought possesses ultimate openness along with its course-of-life finality: you change, but you always remain your same self, you, a person, this person (not some other), who changes.  Was this a painter's 'bright idea', or was it a bit of absurdity de Kooning knew he could throw back at interviewers who had foolish, pretentious notions about his work? His line may be a corruption of the adage, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.'  De Kooning was known for malapropisms as well as witticisms, and often the difference was indiscernable.  Perhaps he meant to repeat the cliche, but it emerged garbled.  The spontaneous result seems to have amused him,  and presumably others as well; so the expression remained with him, imprinted (a cause of his reputation for repeating himself with uncanny precision).  De Kooning's aberrant phrasing has no fixed origin, existing only in its frequent reiterations.   His version of adage seems to call for some kind of action, rather than resignation with respect to the perpetual state of things.  He rarely left things as they were, even when complete.  His reluctance to finish led him to technical extremes as he attempted to keep his paint wet for revision (to 'do the same thing over and over').  He preserved records of his process so he could move backward as well as forward.  He merely wanted to move, to change.  His exhibited paintings have an unfinished look but lack a typical rhetoric of the 'unfinished' (such as artfully distributing drips and rhythmically spaced bare spots).  Such a rhetoric. were it present, would convert a lack of finish into an end--this was an irony in which de Kooning took no part.  It might be accurate to say that rather than finish works, he discontinued them for the sake of other works.  This was his 'I just stop'.  As long as he was alive and painting he would avoid stasis.  Keep moving, keep changing, stay alive."

Visual Translations and What de Kooning Was About

The top is an 8x10 pastel and the bottom a 9x12 oil, both of South End locations, interpreted.

In the Shiff book on de Kooning, he quotes an anonymous reviewer who wrote, "[de Kooning's] real subject is the aesthetic sensibility as it responds to the shock of the beautiful buried forms and rhythms in the objects and processes of the world...He has never been exclusively an abstract or figurative artist."  So there it is.  Now you know.

Two South Ends and One De Kooning Joke

I could only manage to make two pastels of the South End today.  Both are 8x10 as the previous group.

I've been reading a fascinating book, Between Sense and De Kooning by Richard Shiff, that explores De Kooning's painting philosophy with many detailed and nuanced examples.  Hopefully, I can write more about it later.  I did want to mention one more De Kooning phrase that Shiff repeats, one I hadn't encountered before.  De Kooning can be wonderfully irreverent.  He once said that the paintings of Mark Rothko were "blurred Albers".

Holding Pattern and more de Kooning

The drawing is from this morning. The weather was just as perfect as yesterday. I am working on one painting on canvas, and another in my head, so just a drawing to present today. I find that using a lead pencil, over which I use a couple carbon pencils, works nicely to suggest light. The carbon pencils sort of "spit" since they don't get along with the lead pencil.

I took a look at the de Kooning: a Retrospective catalog, and found another quote, which I had read previously but not in the biography:

One thing nice about space is that it keeps on going...

There will probably be others which I will find and produce here.

Walk'nDraw and de Kooning's Words

This morning was sunny and cold. I managed one drawing. Fortunately, tomorrow promises to be as nice, and I will be better prepared. I walked in the opposite direction, and saw compositions that I have missed until now, only because the light was so cooperative. The above drawing is made with three different pencils.

But I did make a compilation of de Kooning quotes:

In da beginning was da void.

You have to change to stay the same.

[Water,] it reflects while you are reflecting.

[Mondrian] became the greatest lay-out man in the universe.

There was no doubt he [Arshile Gorky] was the boss. It was his personality and I had to put up with it. He was the general. Like we would be walking and all of a sudden he would cross the street. So I would tell him, ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that Arshile, because you do that the right way and skip the car—but I run into it.’

Art is the thing you cannot make.

Everything is already in art, like a big bowl of soup. And you just stick your hand in, and find something for you. But it was already there, like a stew.

The trouble with a painting, you know, is that you can’t get the legs under it. No matter what you do those legs are always sticking out of the plane.

…when I was eighteen, I could paint just as good as now. Now I have to spend the rest of my life to know what I was doing.

Edges are what we see. It’s between the edges that it’s difficult.

Even abstract shapes must have a likeness.

If you are an artist the problem is to make a picture work whether you are happy or not.

If I will ever be a great painter is something for other people to find out. I am content to just be a painter.

I think that if an artist can always title his pictures, that means he is not always very clear.

The universe gives me the creeps.

Every time I paint a picture I’m throwing the dice. I can’t ‘save’ anything. That would be doctoring it. It’s a new game. It’s not like playing poker where you can trade a card for another one; it’s playing dice.

An artist is like a homespun philosopher.

Art should not have to be a certain way…Style is a fraud…To desire to make a style is an apology for one’s anxiety.

Flesh was the reason why oil painting was invented.

The landscape is in the woman and there is Woman in the Landscapes.

Well, you know a car could be on the street sitting on its four wheels, but put the car with the wheels up in the air and something strange happens, the same car, just change the position of it.

[Cuba] was like being in New Jersey, except for the palm trees.

I don’t want to be new anymore.

Actually I’ve fallen in love with nature. I don’t know the names of trees but I see things in nature very well. I’ve got a good eye for them, and they look back at me.

Goethe said that when you’re sixty you start all over again, and that’s what I’m doing.

…look at the way Hopper painted the people to look like furniture and the furniture to look like the people.

Y’know the real world, this so-called real world, is just something you put up with, like everybody else.

Then there is a time in life when you just take a walk: And you walk in your own landscape.

I am becoming freer. I think you can do miracles with what you have if you accept it.

Canal in the Early Morning 2

When I walk along the canal in the early morning, while it's still fairly dark, since I have been reading about de Kooning, and his pal Franz Kline, I am reminded of their black and white images.

There's a famous photo of de Kooning with Elaine taken by Hans Namuth in the summer of 1953. De Kooning has been working on one of his woman paintings on the back porch of Leo Castelli's summer house in East Hampton. He put up sheetrock to hang his paintings, presumably to protect the house wall, but quite noticeable is that de Kooning didn't bother with a drop cloth. The porch floor is covered with thick paint. Somebody had to clean up that mess later. I thought about it as I was cleaning up after supper tonight.

The Canal in the Early Morning

Another in the series of early morning canals, planned slowly and painted quickly in several stages. 9x12 pastel.

I have completed the De Kooning biography. Long live the king. When talking about his late pastoral paintings, he said, "Actually I've fallen in love with nature... I don't know the names of trees but I see things in nature very well. I've got a good eye for them, and they look back at me." To borrow a metaphor from Thoreau (and De Kooning), the canal is an eye looking at me.

Another Hopper

The drawing I did this past weekend, and the oil painting I completed yesterday. Both 11x14.

I have spent the last couple weeks with Willem De Kooning. Where I am in the biography, he is now past being the successful "king" of the action painters. I love his work, but his lifestyle was very demanding for those who loved him, especially after the late 1950's. Interesting parallels with the other Dutchman, Van Gogh. Both would not have become who they did become without the destructive influence of their mothers.

Weekend's Work

This weekend I did one drawing and one painting that are posted above. Actually I did more, but I have to save some stuff for later. I have become enamored of the Hopper view from Sloan Road.

I am halfway through the De Kooning biography. Ca. 1950: He's incredibly poor, partly by choice, and has just created some of his best works. Heroic dedication. Like a saint, except he wasn't a saint.

Small Canals

The 5x12 pencil drawing is one of two from this morning's walk'n draw. The above is a 5x7 pastel worked in a similar fashion to the earlier see-if-it-sticks pastels.

In the De Kooning biography, there's mention of the drawing "Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brother." I always thought De Kooning was the older brother, but the writers indicate that he is the younger brother. What they say makes sense, but I was surprised at how easy it is to make assumptions. But after looking at the drawing again, maybe De Kooning is both brothers. The biography is wonderful, by the way. More to come as I progress through the book.

Full Barn View

This is a full view of the abandoned barn. 12 x 24 oil.

I have started reading the biography of Willem De Kooning by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. I didn't realize he was sort of like the Yogi Berra of painting. He made the following comments: "In da beginning was da void." and "[Water] reflects while you are reflecting." and "You must change to stay in the same place." I'll try to make a compilation.