Work One Idea To Death
“You should never will a change in your work,” painter John Currin told Calvin Tomkins (New Yorker, Jan 28 2008). “You have to work an idea to death. I often find the best things happen when I’m near the end.” Visual artists often take one thing and do it over and over and over–peaches, or woods, or faces, or nudes, or dogs on sofas. And when they’re really burnt out on the thing, it starts getting good. I have my classes write linked pieces for this reason–I believe getting to know a thing over time, working it and reworking it and pursuing it to the point of ridiculousness is how we learn how to see.
I love this article by Calvin Tomkins! I won’t copy it out here as I did with the Menand piece.
Highlights.
Currin says: “I came to the conclusion that there is no misery in art. All art is about saying yes, and all art is about its own making.” He feels he does better work now that his life is happy and stable and filled with love. Artists don’t have to suffer, and maybe shouldn’t. (Students you know who you are!)
“It doesn’t look good now,” Currin says. “but a big part of painting is getting used to things not looking good while you work on them.” (This is my favorite art quote of the week; ED we must put it in the margins of 2e!)
Calvin Tomkins watches Currin paint, as he switches from one brush to a softer one. Currin narrates his process. “It starts to multiply, the grading of tones, until it becomes thousands of tones…. some are accidental and some are intentional. It’s great when the accidental becomes indistinguishable from the intentional. That’s when it begins to seem like a living thing.”
Students: we can do this with pencil and paper and words, make these living things out a combination of accident and leaning-towards. Nothing is more exciting than this kind of making.
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Yes yes yes!
(in case you thought I’d stopped reading)