[New-Poetry] Never Mind The Pollocks

Mon Nov 3 17:40:55 EST 2008

I have to find where the text lives before I write about it. Text has
to come around the subject, either as part of it or because of it. If
I can't find any text, it don't get written.

It's a modal thing, I cannot write and draw at the same time. I can
feed in words to my painting - at one stage, I was obliterating my
words with thick, heavy layers of transparent blue paint. Umm. Might
try that again. But dealing with pre-configured semantic signs (words,
alphabets), and configuring signs into meaning something (sculpting,
painting, drawing etc) seem to me two modal operations that my hands
cannot handle. Maybe it's me but something like concrete poetry is
dealt with step-wise and incrementally, alternating between words then
shapes. I'd be interested on hearing from anyone else on this.

The best inspiration comes when I'm not thinking. If I'm watching
something I have to be doing something. My hands think for me; if I'm
doing origami or, my latest venture with train tickets. I'm doing pre
and post rationalisation folds on scrunched-up tickets, they look like
moths so I'm going to construct a cardboard display cabinet, and pin
the folded up piece of card there. But the scrunching and the
rationalisations are sometimes planned, but mostly my fingers just do,
solving problems for me. Same for playing the guitar, or writing or
drawing. My hands think for me. They're the ones doing the work. Most
of the time, my brain isn't even in the loop, it's usually somewhere
else, watching crap TV or worrying.

This crosses over at a conceptual level, for me, in cubism. The cubist
sense of collage informs everything I do, including observational
drawing. I'm currently drawing shoes. I do about 30 minutes a day on
the same subject if I'm lucky. Each day, the shoe is viewed slightly
differently. The distance is subtly changed, the light changes, I've
knocked the shoe and I have to return the shoe back to nearly the
original position. My "final" picture is a composite of all those
different views. The picture has it's own logic, independent yet
dependent on the subject.

Cubism informs my poetry; I try, mostly unsuccessfully, to make my
poems out of fragments, devoid of any "I", even when the "I" is there.
Interestingly, I was listening to Susan Blackmore on Radio 3 talk
about the non-existence of the "I" in the human brain. Humans, she
went on, are "choice machines", working constantly in parallel, with
no "I" as the centre. The I we perceive is an illusion. As a result,
there is no free-will. (Blackmore goes on to say that if we mapped the
grid-matrix of choices, then we might be have determination but I
believe that, too is an illusion; I think we are chaotic choice
machines: until the choice resolves it's choices, we cannot say which
way it will go.) I would like to say that science caught up with Art,
but then Will Self did a talk on consciousness in the 19th century
novel and apparently demolished any literary pretensions in that
direction. I would like to think that photography nudged painting
which in turn exploded poetry and literary notions of the "I" but I
know that's too simple.

I think, mostly, that the conceptual formalities are a
post-rationalisation. Once upon a time I tried to clear my mind and
write something at least once a day. I produced a lot of words. Like a
sculptor, I cut back a lot of the words, negative, and, positively,
added more; and changed some. I read and re-read, just like I draw and
re-draw. Sometimes, they work as planned, sometimes not.

I'm having to learn about colour, step by step, by copying fine art
postcards. I'm having to develop a sense of colour as I don't think my
sense of colour comes naturally. I love it to pieces, like you, but I
find it hard to manipulate. My studio is too cold, so I've been buying
colour pencils. I hadn't realised there was so much choice about.

Roger

On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Judy Prince
<jbalizsprince at googlemail.com> wrote:
> OK, R'Owl.  I'm a colour-freak but can't handle it aesthetically responsibly
> like geniuses such as Pollock.  If I had my way, I'd stare at a rainbow or
> wall washed in prism-colours all day, tiny coloured lites on every tree and
> bush.  So I hafta begin like a baby with b/w.  Paul Oxborough [sp?] did the
> 2 year only black painting thing.  Some of his works're nifty [I've only
> seen the ones in colours]; my faves are woman at the piano, a tiny work; and
> his self-portrait peeling an orange.
> Pretty much all styles and periods intrigue me, but recently mainly bcuz of
> Peter Ciccariello's poems that blow my mind, I'm tryna figure out why, and
> experimenting with poems and drawings that give me the same 'feel' as his
> poems do.
> Main feeling I get is that somehow the top of my head lifts up and stays
> that way while I'm reading Peter's poems or writing/reading my lately ones.
>  The rest of my head, from eyes down, functions as an indulgent, sleepy but
> alert, sharp, benign editor.
> Same things with the latest b/w illustrations, but it's a lot more
> difficult.  The editor-eyes pull the top of my head down quite frequently,
> alas.  Don't know why the diff btn poetry and painting headtop actions.
>  Mite be as simple as my feeling more comfortable with words than with
> image-jugglings.  Helps me to get blank paper and marker, think about how
> I'm gonna illustrate a thing; then, having thought of the ways, to just say
> "oh fuck" and go with something altogether different and weird.  It's
> possible to do this more easily when the viewers are my 5 yr old grandtwins
> bcuz they make fewer assumptions about what's 'normal' [or at least they
> don't seem surprised at what they see].  The whole area of 'mistakes'
> doesn't really apply, therefore. Lovely, nah?  ;-)
> Your turn now,
> joodles
>
>
>
> 2008/11/3 Roger Day <rog3r.day at gmail.com>
>>
>> I was wondering about the relationship of your work with Pollocks?
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 3:29 PM, Judy Prince
>> <jbalizsprince at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> > You're asking all the delicious questions, R'Owl, and you've the talent,
>> > background, and perseverance to get a spread of answers.  How about
>> > xpanding
>> > your field of artists unlimitedly, both the painters and the poets?
>> > On NP, am loving the chat about Franz Kline, for example, looking at the
>> > sublim[e]inal samenesses in old Chinese calligraphy, FK's works, and my
>> > recent attempts at illustrating using fat black marker pens [as a quick
>> > way
>> > to approximate some of the look of woodcuts]---and most excitingly to
>> > note
>> > those techniques' and effects' similarities in the poems of Peter
>> > Ciccariello and my latest ones.
>> > What say you about your works, fine art and poetic, and their possible
>> > relationships with others'?
>> > Best,
>> > joodles
>> >
>> > 2008/11/3 Roger Day <rog3r.day at gmail.com>
>> >>
>> >> The admiration for Pollock expressed in this forum is shared by me.
>> >> However, I have .. questions. Art practice is about control: control
>> >> of media, the reader/viewer, experience ... yet Pollock pushes those
>> >> boundaries. Oh, he has a modicum control in that each painting is a
>> >> selection of colours and he places them - approximately and this is
>> >> the rub - where he wants but if Art practice is continuum of control
>> >> to un-control, then his methods swing to the latter unlike, say,
>> >> Rothko whose methods veer towards absolute control. Who are Pollocks
>> >> heirs? Not many, I think. Damien Hirst for one, possibly. Any others?
>> >>
>> >> My tutor hated Pollock to the extent that Pollock disappeared off his
>> >> teaching map.
>> >>
>> >> How does this translate into poetry? If poetic practice is about
>> >> control, whose poetical methods resemble Pollocks? Whose poetry is the
>> >> parallel of Pollocks paintings?
>> >>
>> >> Roger
>> >> --
>> >> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>> >> "I began to warm and chill
>> >> to objects and their fields"
>> >> Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> New-Poetry mailing list
>> >> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> >> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > New-Poetry mailing list
>> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
>> "I began to warm and chill
>> to objects and their fields"
>> Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>

-- 
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"I began to warm and chill
to objects and their fields"
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds