MY CONCERNS

Beliefs and Disbeliefs

12 Beliefs

• I believe painting is the supreme form of expression.
• I believe in specific color and specific drawing.
• I believe in color as an object in and of itself.  It’s “being” beyond its designation or assignment to a particular form, space, or line.
• I believe in infinite numbers of outcomes from a singular source.
• I believe that accomplished paintings have in them a specific sense of place and time, regardless of the nature of their content or their manner (figural, abstract, etc.).
• I believe in craftsmanship and presentation, and the permanence and durability of the art-object.
• I believe in the nature of paint as a substance, that it has its own manner and behavior which “does what ‘IT’ does”, that paint must just be stimulated and lead about to an end.
• I believe in revelation as the means to resolution (completion) of a painting.  At some moment in the working life of a painting, there is the sudden realization that no further marks could be or should be made.This moment cannot be predetermined.
• I believe in the making of art not as vocation or occupation, but as a persistent and faithful way of life.
• I believe painting is an elite art-form that will endure.
• I believe I am worthwhile.
• I believe I am entitled to change, alter, or modify my beliefs according to my own whims.

6 Disbeliefs

• I do not believe that art has any real purpose other than one’s compulsion for its making and the visceral, intellectual enjoyment and enlightenment in its viewing.
• I do not believe that social criticism, politics, or personal agendas of any kind have a serious place or momentum in higher art.
• I do not believe in “isms” of any kind and I am suspicious and skeptical of those who do.
• I do not believe in any art made out of, or purely from, ideation.  The only worthwhile work in our collective past has been realized through the eyes, experience, intellect, intuition, and poetic filter of those engaged in fervent observation.
• I do not believe in collaborative art. One must be alone and willing to dare; therein lay all or nothing.
• I do not believe in any form of art which might be described as “current”.