Drips

A couple of years ago, I had a painting exhibited in a regional show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY and had a few paintings for sale in the Gallery's bookstore. My mother was viewing the paintings and commented that there were paint drips on one of my abstract pieces. My response was that I worked hard to make those drips. What I saw and appreciated and what my mother saw were two very different things, stimulating distinctly opposite emotions and thoughts. My mother is now 91 years old and until a few months ago lived her whole life in the house that she was born in. From her perspective drips were the bane of painting, any kind of painting. Drips were a sign of careless, sloppy work, and should be eliminated. This cultural perspective is reflected in our slang. Calling someone a "drip" meant that they were an annoying person. We don't want to be a "drip!"

So when did drips become an positive aesthetic in painting? And, how was it possible to reorient the traditionally held views on paint drips? Who dripped first? Now, if you google search for drips in art, guess what, you get Jackson Pollack. He had an influence, but I can't count him. He didn't make real drips, he used an innovative drip technique to apply paint. The drips I am referring to are drips that run from applying liquid paint to a vertical surface. Real drips! Purposeful drips! Splatters don't count either, different category. Motherwell made splatter paintings - close but no cigar. We can find a few real drips in Franz Kline's work, even Rothko's. But they were minor, you have to look hard to find them. Hans Hofmann got into drips in the 60's, too late to be innovative, plus they were weird. Well, what about de Kooning? He had paint flying all over the place. Yes, bold brush work, not too many drips. The exception was work that relied on loose washes. Washes created drips, unavoidable. However, most of these pieces with drips seem to be more like sketches and not in the same class as his paintings, which contained hardly no real dripping (thick paint).

Who made the drip respectable and beautifully important? Was it Robert Rauschenberg? I vote yes. Take a look at "Yoicks" painted in 1953. I love this painting! Drips are a central elements of this work. This is an influential painting. I have a board on my Pinterest page called Strata, it's filled with contemporary artists that paint in horizontal stripes - 60 years later.

Robert Rauschenberg, "Yoicks"

1953, Oil and Collage on Canvas, 96 x 72"

Collection: The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Rauschenberg worked with non-traditional or everyday materials, in "Yoicks" case, a patterned fabric. By the way, he used enamel paint that dripped without much effort. His paint seems to assume multiple realities - it acted as a connector between collage and objects but also made a statement. And, that statement was amplified by the emotional content of drips. Intentional and purposeful drips! Color with the energy of drips as message not mistake! I am wondering, could drips relate to Rauschenberg's feelings about art? Art that is not elitist, overly polished, or exclusive to the upper class. Does a brush stroke of color with inseparable drips have the potential to symbolize common everyday life and include everyone? I think it might.

Robert Rauschenberg, "Bed"

1955, Oil and Graphite on Fabric,

75.5 x 31.5 x 6.5"

Collection: The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Close-up, Robert Rauschenberg, "Bed".

Did these drips gave birth to a new aesthetic?

It must have been shocking to see this work when it was first exhibited. Considering the cultural perception of drips in 1953. Today, with the passage of time, drips are cool. What an impossible transformation! We owe a lot to Robert Rauschenberg.

Well, it's difficult to isolate my comments about Rauschenberg to simply drips. I hope I didn't overlook another artist that contributed to making drips a positive aesthetic in painting. If so, please let me know. 

Revisionist Thinking

Today, I reworked a recent painting (The Possessors of Circles, posted in April) that I completed in February 2015. It took three days and a night to revise. What made me do such a thing? The work was O.K. In fact, I noticed that it was even getting re-pinned from my Pinterest board. It is important to note, this was a revision not a paint over. And, this isn't the first time I went back and altered a finished painting. However, it is rare that I engage in such action. It is my practice to reflect on a work, sometimes for hours, until I am sure it is finished.

Here's what I think happened. I fell in love. I became attached to my technique. I have developed a way of working with encaustic paint that produces large beads and organic shapes of paint. The majority of the surface of this painting was covered with these gems. I usually try to balance this texture with providing smooth areas, creating a tension between the two. The trouble was that I was too successful creating an overall field of amazing surface. And, I could not bring myself to change it. No courage – fear of screwing up a good painting that seemed finished. Maybe it wasn't as good as it could be? I bothered me, but the irritation was only a mild itch, easily dismissed. Until now. I needed the feeling of joy that comes from perseverance and raising a work to its highest level.

Sacrifice was required.

I needed to give up what I previously believed to be valuable for something more valuable. I took out my scraper and began shaving off the rounded tops of the beaded mounds. Major surgery! I must have removed over 3 ounces of paint! About 40% of the surface was now transformed into raised, white, flat topped plateaus that seem to ripple across the surface. Some areas, where I cut deep, became smooth spaces with only a few pits that could be extenuated by infusing color into them.  The addition of an single color (Alizarin Orange), caught in the nooks and crannies, unified and actually enhanced the surface. The shaving process also revealed under-painting and created a surprising marble-like effect in some area.

Emboldened, I began better defining subtle areas, adding detail, and intensifying color. More important, another triangle emerged – creating the twin triangle motif that has characterized many of my older paintings. In a complex painting such a this one, these twin shapes temporarily anchor the viewer's gaze and their symmetry seems to create a calming effect. Adding that triangle was a significant addition! At the last minute, the letters "B" and "E" manifested themselves. These hidden letters almost always find there way into my work.

Here's the revised painting, side by side with the original. It's funny, but these subtle refinements makes me feel like the painting was reborn. However, at first glance, a causal observer might not see any difference at all. I hope you agree that my efforts improved the quality of the work.

Carey Corea "Possessors of Circles" (Revised) Encaustic on Cradled Panel, 30"x30"

Original version. Unfortunately, this photo 

is slightly warmer than the new one, not providing an exact comparison.

However, I hope you can see through that.

My Woolly Experiment

I have just completed a new painting titled "the Arks of Shadow and Light." If you are familiar with my work, you know that I paint with encaustics and I create a considerable amount of texture during the painting process. Encaustic paint has the ability to build-up raised shapes above the surface. I also paint on cradled panels. Sometimes they are made of birch but recently I've been using a special absorbent primed cradled Masonite made specifically for encaustics. Painting on a hard surface instead of canvas has its benefits. In this case, it permitted me to think about the painting surface in new ways.

My painting process almost always begins with black and white thumbnail drawings. This painting was no exception. Out of about 40 sketches, I picked one of the simple concepts. The sketch contained dashed lines forming a vessel or ark shape (a theme of some of my recent work). I sketch with a needlepoint V5 Pilot pen in a sketchbook of heavy quality paper. I also envision the sequence of layers of color and their thickness as I sketch. This is important because I paint in both an additive and subtractive process. Encaustic paint can be scratched or carved to reveal the under layers of color.

It's the dashes that I want to focus on for this post. I got an idea how to create them – an experiment was required! I did not want to mold them out of wax and then apply them for a variety of technical reasons. Instead, I made a visit to JoAnn's Fabrics to buy yarn and a big needle. What an experience! Most yarn is acrylic and acrylic and encaustics are enemies. Well, I finally found some wool yarn (on sale) the kind you'll knit a fisherman's sweater with and a package of repair needles.

Back in the studio, I freely drew the two arks in pencil, one made of dashed lines and the other in a continuous line. I drilled small holes into the panel at each end of the dashed gestural lines and laced the yarn in and out. The pencil lines turned into heavy raised woolly lines ready for the mystery of painting. No matter how much advanced planning one takes there is a point where one must let go of preconceived ideas and just paint. Some painters begin at that point but I rarely do. However, the best paintings are those where you don't force the work and you listen and feel the paint. An analogy just occurred to me to illustrate this reality.

An abstract painter is like a experienced sea captain tossed in a violent storm. The changing sea conditions dictate how he steers the ship and how much power to use. If the captain sticks to his planned route, more than likely, he will capsize the ship.

In the bottom portion of the painting you'll notice a red line of paint. This was add while the sea was tossing the ship around. I laced a long strand of yarn, and as I applied paint, bent it to parallel the slightly curved shape of the vessel.

I know some people take interest in how paintings are created, while others just want to respond to the finished work. I'm of the group that always seem to ask, "how did they do that?" Of course, there is no answer to that question. The best we can hope for is a superficial level of insight into materials and technique.

I hope you like "The Arks of Shadow and Light".

Carey Corea "Arks of Shadow and Light" 

Mixed Media, Encaustics and Wool on Cradled Panel, 16"x16"