John Berger described drawing as something done “not only to make something observed visible to others, but also to accompany something invisible to its incalculable destination.” For so many of us who write, compose, paint or draw, Berger’s sentence brings to mind familiar experiences: Starting with something we see that we want to make comprehensible […]
Power of things
Fetishists and Digitizers
Temple site at Mahabalipuram, India Many of us have been discussing James Gleick’s recent piece in the New York Times, Books and Other Fetish Objects which addresses the digitization projects that will move historical documents into the cloud, available anywhere and by anyone. Gleick is a bit impatient with the sentimental attachment that some have […]
Still Enchanting After All These Years
Looking south from Cordova NM The view from Carson NM I’m back from five days in New Mexico. Born in the desert and more at home in that landscape than anywhere else, I have been in a deep need for that stark horizontality, for the vistas that read both minimally and maximally, for the understated […]
Staying Awake in our Unending Dream
Emergency Kit When I find myself among a laughing tribe, I know they hide something from me; I conjure up a laughter box whose button I press to outlaugh them all. As long as they hear their music, they leave me free; I don’t want to surrender all I have. I am a moving stump […]
Stillness, in Color
A few views of the Lake District, where color and stillness speak Ask Me Sometime when the river runs ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt […]
Ancient Land
What a relief to spend the last few days in a country that doesn’t have a president named Bush. The cheery Cumbrian men who stopped in to repair a leak in the ceiling listened with patience while we complained about how difficult it is to be an American abroad, and then pointed out that the […]
Luc Tuymans
Luc Tuymans’ paintings have an atmosphere all their own. They stand out whenever I have seen them on display, with that signatory diluted palette and the painterly, brushstroked surface. His content is usually identifiable and yet the paintings have a mystery to them that makes them feel more aligned to non-representational work. Although much younger […]
Getting to Into
My work has a close relationship to landscape, but it is not a direct one. People often talk about a certain place and say something like, “It is so beautiful, you really can’t capture it in a photograph.” What is it that can’t be captured by a representational process like photography? What exists beyond the […]
Being Schooled
Silence and solitude, as great teachers have always advised, open us up to new layers of consciousness. This week the layer I have been in features a cast of animals, each bringing its own meaning and significance. A few days ago I opened the door of my studio and was overwhelmed by the smell of […]
More than Meaning
One of the reasons I get rather depressed by the current fad for documentary style fiction, is its insistence on the explanatory above the symbolic. Good writing goes beyond its subject matter. Language is more than meaning. The things that we have read that we remember seem to move with us through our lives as […]