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page 7
Stone Riley
Greybeard's Rant page 7
(my real artist's statement)
(C) 2005 by Stone Riley
And how about those master painters of the Modern movement? You want the grammar and the syntax, so to speak, the rhyme and meter, for a visual language that will speak clearly in our time? You want to learn technique. I'm warning you; this takes some steady practice.
Here's what I recommend as a basic course of study: Learn color from Matisse, line from Picasso, shape from Gauguin, brushwork from Van Gogh, landscape from O'Keefe, composition from Pollack, figure from Rouault and face from Kahlo. There's a start. Okay, I'm joking. This is not the right approach. This is academic. This is the very soul of classifying things. Run away from any teacher who suggests this. Sure, there is some value in this kind of thing to some extent but this is definitely extremely wrong as your central effort.
Here's what I suggest: (really) You want to learn to paint the Modern way? Go look at Modern paintings. A lot of them. Prowl up and down museum halls until one of the damn things jumps off the wall into your brain. This is communication. This is the effect you want to learn.
Now get a stool or chair. They are usually provided by museums as a public service. Politely ask a guard for one if you don't see them. Now sit and stalk the thing as patiently as if you were a cat. Fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes. Fill your eyes repeatedly with every color, curve, shape, surface and symbol, and the relationships in which they are arranged. Feel around inside your brain for every place each of these things is touching you and the sensations all these touches bring. And shift your consciousness repeatedly. The way an actor does. What if you came here this morning angry at your father? What if you came here broke and hungry? How would that affect the picture? And so forth. Don't try to take down conscious mental notes, just see vividly and trust your memory to do its work.
Now, back in your laboratory. Try to duplicate some part of what you've seen. Of course you'll have to watch the damn thing carefully just like before, feeling round inside your brain and shifting consciousness.
That's how you learn technique, the grammar, syntax rhyme and meter of this language.
And like I said, it does take steady practice. There is an awful lot available to learn.
But when you've got a few tricks in your eyes and brain and hands, ready to whip out whenever needed, then your myths and metaphors can begin to be spoken in a way people will understand. Take what Picasso said one time to be the goal for your study of technique: "My pictures reach in through your eyes and grab your asshole."
(continued)
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