Blank Canvas

 

 

Triangles are my favourite shapes.  Three points where two lines meet.

*This took him a while to figure out because it does not fit his logic, but bear with, the song played repetitiously throughout that final year.  It created the pace of moving from bus to desk, from drawing to object, from six degrees to four, from swim to street, from train to sleep. When the desire to control tips over the edge as it moves from apprehension, excitement, nausea and fear and is finally satisfied in the meeting of lines.

Work pending; the pending tray.  I always enjoyed that word ‘pending’ I like that there are things waiting for me to do, it makes me feel as though I have purpose.  I have enjoyed organisation and order for many years. As a teenager I had a pending tray on my desk at home, it made me feel organised, formal, purposeful and official, like an adult, which I find amusing given how ridiculous the word sounds to me.

My pending tray is always full, its contents always reach way higher than its edges. There are so many things I want to do, but they are often tangents off the work I am doing now. My work can be rhizomatic. It also cyclic, layered and linear. The rhizomatic journeys can’t all be examined, it dilutes the experience of the main journey. Keeping notes for a later date helps me to remember these. It stops me from going down rabbit holes that are not relevant to the rabbit hole I am currently in. So, it helps me focus and know that there is a journey waiting for me. A pending tray is a physical list—an aide memoire. Its very helpful

When I first heard the word ‘pending’ I just liked the sound of it.  It didn’t sound like a proper word, I found it amusing and its quite like a sound – a sound something would make on being moved, like an elastic band and its ‘pinging’ perhaps but a bit heavier than a ping – a pen-ding, a disappointing ping maybe, one that you aim for the other side of the room and it falls at your feet.  Is this because it has two syllables and moves from one to the other? Theres no optimism in the word pending, it’s more a to-do, not a ta-da.  I like the two syllables pen-ding, they both have a similar length but a slightly different directional feel, like something raising slightly up and then falling a little bit heavier down and coming to rest in a definite stop.  A word reaching up and out of itself, suggesting a desire to achieve something, but falling a little short of that, falling through the gravitational pull of its own weight.  That could be the procrastination.

PEN                                                    PEN

DING                                                           DING

 

Coffee break (pending)… more procrastination, this time its the coffee break thats pending and not the painting, because the painting has happened.  I am not sure there is any point at all in this post.

 

I don’t know why I painted this photograph.  I just felt like getting a paintbrush out at this point.  It felt a bit wrong though, to be painting.  Perhaps when I am doing something else? I wanted to see what would happen when I isolated the coffee break, the table etc.  Its not really a break from painting when you are actually painting, so I guess thats it.  It highlights or isolates the coffee cup and the table with sketchbooks on it.  It is anchored on the bottom edge of the photograph, in a kind of non-space/liminal space waiting for a background maybe?, a painted space, an image space, a combined photograph-painted space.  Its not a collaged space though, there has been no cutting and assembling, or composing.  The photograph was the original space and the paint was applied on top around a specific boundary, concealing the top part of the photograph.  The walls have literally been painted white, awaiting initial ideas in the form of writing, sketches, etc.  In painting on top of the photograph, the painting dominates the photograph, controlling what is seen and what is not.  The brush strokes are slower and focused, not like, for example Gerhard Richter’s squeegee paintings where he used a long, flat edge to scrape paint across.  Less control.  This has been painted slowly and methodically, there is a collaboration or a desire to work with the photograph.   There is care in where the brush is placed, it is considered and definite.  The photograph informs the painting, it tells it what do do, where to work.  The photograph is in control, the photograph sets the limits.  I facilitate a dialogue between painting and photograph.  It is even tempered.  They are working together to create a shared space, but the limits are the size and materials of the photographic paper.  This meeting will not work so well with acrylic because it is water based and buckled the photographic paper when I tried it last week, so it is a conversation between oil paint and photograph.  I haven’t tried enamel. Some pens work, pencils not so much.  The oil paint has been put in its place by the photograph.

I wonder what happens the other way around?

*Njideka Akunyili Crosby, RH Quaytman, Lorna Simpson, Rosemarie Trockel, Lubaiana Himid, Gerhard Richter, etc painters who use photographs.  Look at the nuanced dialogues and the series of Blank Canvas (Conversations) that are drying in the studio…

 

 

This post is a response to the reading of WJT Mitchell’s (1996) essay ‘What Do Pictures Want?’ in which he suggests that images should be read from a ‘subaltern’ model, a position of powerlessness or impotence where the viewer invites the image to speak of its desires.  He states that this is a preferable way of understanding meaning through images, that is not through meaning and power, what the images ‘do’ but what they want from us.  What the image wants, according to Mitchell, is seen through its ‘lack’; what it does not reveal. Is this indicated through its iconicity and indexicality?

Mitchell—images are marginalised and inferior in comparison to language. They are coloured, or stained—marked in some way. They are not a Blank Canvas. They are gendered, as feminine. They want to be considered as equals to that of the other, perhaps to language—but to nature, or humanity, but a specific type, one with power.

As the person who took the photograph, I am aware of the intention I had when I took the image and thus my perception around its meaning, intention, desire and the physical ‘realities’ the space and the objects.  This aspect of its meaning will become a little lost, that is, the possibilities of its meaning associated only with me, when it becomes viewed and available to the desires of others. It will lose some of those, but gain others. This makes me wonder, does the image want, or desire, the same thing from each person?  Perhaps not, but are there more general things that images want from everyone? Shared values.

Images want to be seen is the first thing I would suggest, because they are visual objects, so they are always seeking attention in some way, looking to be seen, or read, and listened to, or heard—they want to be visible and given a voice. But images can’t speak for themselves. They need to be interpreted. They need someone who will speak for, or translate for them. They need an advocate. The artist is an advocate for images and objects, for the creative expression of things. They need a representative. To represent what they are saying. The need an artist to translate them. These words mean different things and this is important in understanding the nuances of what is being said. An advocate, like a representative is someone who supports a cause publicly, similar to an artist. An advocate is often someone who is in court to do this, suggesting legal means, legislation, human rights—the rights to fair and equal speech? The right to safety? Does this suggest a paid relationship, or pro bono? Representation has a similar meaning, but can often appear in a more political context. These roles are in place for those who are unable to speak for themselves. Are these they types of representation that images need? Is the artist an advocate, or representative for images?

Images want to explore their potential—their creative potential—their possibilities. They need artists to do that, to explore the creative potential of things. But essentially everyone is an artist, everyone has the potential for being creative. Perhaps the artist is only needed to prove translation provides a creative framework and then, theoretically, everyone could translate images. The artist as researcher can validate this theory, for everyone to use. Translation theorist Edwin Gentzler discusses the rise in amateur translators in his book Translation and Re-writing in the age of Post-Translation Studies, stating translators are writing blogs, fan-fiction, vlogs, etc. He adds that contemporary translation scholars are now less concerned with linguistic accuracy and more interested in translation as a way of expanding cultural communication.

The digital image above wants to be online, that is where it is at home, in its place, in this digital context. But it is only one the places it is at home, because it has many functions—it can be printed, used online and manipulated physically. The creative potential of mages has allowed it to expand in this context. The image here is placed in my blog site online, however, the blog is private. It will be seen only by a few people, my supervisors and my college peers.  The intention of the image, on my behalf, is therefore that it is to be judged, but only to be judged by a few specific people; people who will be able to provide me with something that I consider to be of critical value.  But it has the potential to be made public. The image is controlled in this way by me—but also through the platform I am using, so by WordPress and its partners. Also by my wifi company, currently Virgin Media, and the services of whatever company I might use when I, for example, install it in a specific place. The image is controlled. It can be seen, read, listened to or speak but it is controlled by those who allow it to do so.

Is the thing that they want from the artist or maker the same thing they want from a viewer?  Translation theorist Susan Bassnett describes the translator’s moral obligation in representing the text. The artist has a different responsibility, one of making, s(he) has to take the image and use it in some way to make art of some sort.  The viewer does not have this responsibility.   S(he) has to be open to what the image is asking in order to engage with it in a different way, one of receiving information, being open to understanding what that is, being an actively engaged participant?  The image was for me alone to look at and to question, to stimulate ideas, to respond to, to work with and upon.  I was interested in using the image as a start point for ideas to emerge and art to be made.   Does it want to become a painting?  Does it want to inform or inspire a painting?  The image doesn’t suggest that, but it doesn’t suggest that it doesn’t either.  There is the potential for the image to become, inform or inspire a painting, so I think it could be a possibility, a potential.  There is an uncertainty because the image wants to be seen but there is uncertainty as to how it will be seen.  What could change this is context. Or an action I could take.  The image lacks a ‘definite’ purpose.  It has a purpose now, in a private way, in this blog, but another (final) purpose is still possible, or another additional purpose is still possible.  In theory, I could print it out and it could become a stack of images that I turn around and use as scrap paper, or I could make a tall 6 x 4 coffee table.  Just because it is an image doesn’t mean it has to become an image-based thing, because it is a thing, it is an object.  It could also become shredded material.  It always has the possibility of becoming something else because it is a digital image and it can be forever reproduced.  There is the possibility of spending a year or more on working with this one image and making it new things.  What the image lacks is permanence and stability, despite it being a fixed image. Maybe it want someone to decide what it is—back at interpretation again.

The image is a digital photograph that shows my studio desk, covered in paint, with various sketchbooks, pencils, cleaning rags, text books and a coffee cup, etc positioned mostly around its edges.  There is a large space of wall, which occupies the main centre of the image and is framed by the objects previously described.   Most of the objects are in storage, for example the books are closed and in separate piles of order and the pencils and pens are in jars.  They are placed around the edge of the desk.  The two items in the centre of the desk are the coffee cup and the cleaning rag, which can be seen at the edge of the image.  The only other ‘open’ or available object is the laptop, which is positioned on a pile of books to the right of the image.  The screen is black, suggesting the laptop is turned completely off or has gone into ‘sleep’ mode.  There is good reason to believe that it is not completely off because the screen is visible and that suggests recent usage.  Laptops are easier to store and the screen is protected when closed, so if it were not in use it would be easier and safer for the longevity of the technology to close the screen.   This is a photograph of a place where art is made, but it is not being made at the moment, it is waiting to be made.  There is no art being made here.  This is a photograph of a patient space.  There is no desperation for something to be made here.  There are books around the edges, pencils, pens, knives, all stored, waiting.  There is a coffee cup on the table.  This space has been used before to make much art and art will be made here again, because there is evidence of preparation, of life in the space, through the practice, the coffee cup in the centre of the table, the photograph itself.  The coffee cup suggests that the priority is a break? Or am I painting?  Artists can drink coffee while they work, but mostly in my case the brush or pencil is dipped in the coffee, or I spill it over the drawing, or whatever I am working on.  The coffee cup is usually placed at a distance from the work.  That it is placed in the centre of the table indicates a break is happening.  There is no art being made here.

The lack

It has potential to become something, it has no fixed meaning.  (except here on the blog it does).  (FFFFFFFF. Its meaning is conditional.)

It is a photograph, it is not a painting.

It is a document—it documents a space and time between ending and starting, there is no making.

It is being used to read and understand through writing, it is not text.

It is an object, a piece of paper with an image on it, it’s back is not revealed (online).

It has closed books, there is no information revealed.

It has stored pencils, pens and knives, they are not being used.

It has a coffee as its point of departure?  It lacks human activity or a specific focal point.

It is waiting, there is no movement.

It is a still image, of still objects, there is no movement.

It has a blank wall covering half the space, it is not showcasing anything in particular.

There are stored, closed objects, there is no personal or detailed information.

There is a camera between the objects and the artist, there is no direct contact.

There is no specific subject.

? It desires to become something, to connect with a viewer, engaged with, to be visible, to have a purpose, to have meaning, to make sense?

?It desires to be something other than a photograph?

The image, according to Mitchell, ultimately wants to change places with the person (artist/viewer) and provide its own meaning, but ultimately it can’t, it needs the advocate, representative, an artist, among others. It wants to move into a place where it is seen, or has a voice, and is understood with clarity—its nuances, secrets, truths, perhaps, communicated as it would like. It desires to move, to change place. It desires to re-contextualise, become a completely different subject and object, one it can never ultimately be. Human. The ability to become life, or alive, renewed is only possible through the act of creation. Perhaps this is why the work of art so desperately points to the other, through its multiplicity of indexical relationships to life, trying to connect with it in any way it can. Perhaps this is why it keeps moving and trying, continually re-contextualising, reaching closer through each interpretation of its self.

*note comparisons to Derrida (Babel)

 

Water or tea or coffee?  Tea now not coffee, just a change of desire or too much caffeine?  Getting bored of the same justifications..  The start point of a painting can provide too many avenues of possibility, too many sleepless nights, procrastination is becoming confrontational.  I avoid it by changing the subject.  The same mug becomes tea, becomes coffee, becomes water for painting.  Sleepless nights cause accidents where they become teapaint water.  Teabags skewered by brushes.  Luckily I don’t drink this.

Being inspired by other artists

Ready to write and draw ideas

Sketchbooks at the ready!  Ideas inspired from older drawings and space for new

Things I should have tidied up before I started.  I don’t have a place for these.

Painting books and laptop for research and for listening to music in between work.

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