"I Think I'll Just Sit Here And Drink"

It was bound to happen, and I should have expected it last night. Whenever you are on a roll with painting, particularly watercolors, where you can finish a painting in a relatively short amount of time, you get a turkey.

Reflecting on it all, I suppose that I should have known that I had only a fragment of a pictorial idea, and less of an abstraction strategy. I should have returned either to the theme I had been working on, or worked from life. But no, hubris sets in. I can wing it! I can recreate the image I got from Highway 13 at 70 miles an hour! Forget about it.

So, the day after a session like that, I am bound to sit down and decide whether art is better than drinking.

In both cases we are looking at a similar time commitment: from around 10pm to 2am. In both cases we are looking at a similar zilch in terms of finished product: a dead soldier or pack of empties versus a piece of expensive French watercolor paper, besmirched with costly French watercolors. Cost? At the price they want for good paint and paper, I could have been lapping up a decent single malt. Clean-up? I don't drink to the point of throwing up, so it would have been taking out bottles, cleaning glasses. Instead I was carefully cleaning Kolinsky sable brushes.

Now, the differences: There would have been no expectation of anything to come out of drinking, except maybe some good conversation, and the savoring of whatever it is that I was drinking. Drinking must be social, or it sets up a feedback loop that turns normal people into Charles Bukowski characters. I talk to myself enough. Don't need to do it over a bottle of Oban.

Painting, on the other hand, can never be social, because some dimwit chattering at you as you are trying to get a line or color right makes you paint wrong. That sort of thing drove Pollock back to heavy drinking, and I understand why. Drawing I can do with people nattering away about their cousin Jeb who went to art school and boy is he talented because he can draw any comic book character from memory and it's really crazy at art school because they are all about throwing paint at canvases instead of really drawing, you know, like, all those bulging muscles on superheroes... but not painting.

Sometimes I start painting with music: something rhythmic, lots of Alberti bass, or moving continuo, or jazz. Then I move to so something much more meditative: Morton Feldman or Keith Jarrett playing the Goldberg Variations on harpsichord, or maybe Respighi or Nino Rota (have to be in the mood) or some Scandinavian avant-garde jazz, something austere. Then, as I get deeper into the painting, all I want to hear is the sound of brush on paper, palette knife on canvas, footsteps, sharpening pencils and charcoals, only the sounds of work.

So, painting is not good for company. Drinking is. That would make drinking the better activity.

Can't drive after a good night of drinking? I am always too spent to drive or do much of anything after a lengthy painting session.

Slur my speech? OK, but I rarely have much to say that is of any interest after painting:

E: Alizarin crimson's got that blue thing going.

M: What?

E: Alizarin. Oh, maybe permanent red would have worked better, but then I would have had to cool down the Naples. Naples yellow. That is a great color.

M: Is that the bright yellow that is almost orange?

E: No, thats cad yellow medium. Naples is like sand. Sandstone. Can't use hue, though. Commie plot, hue. Gotta be real Naples yellow. Lead, baby, lead! Oh yeah, do you see any yellow paint or white paint on me? Those both have lead, and I should wash them off. Maybe I should have used a warmer red, though.

Erik retreats to the studio, where he stays for another two hours

E: Well, just blew that. The colors were good, but then they got all loused up with that crappy permanent red. Should have stuck with the alizarin...

M: What do you think of the candidates for mayor?

E: I would rather paint Ignacio, to tell you the truth. More fun woriking on his eyes and forehead. Dellums, I don't know. I would have to do some drawings. I don't know what he looks like as well.

M: I mean their policies.

E: Well, you could use some symbols in the background, although either one could have a hammer and sickle back there. I suppose horns on Ron Dellums would be too much symbolism? Maybe the ghost of Jim Jones hovering over him...

And so on. Painting makes you think only of painting. Drinking, well, you think of all sorts of things.

Then there is the day after. Too much booze and you have a headache, are sensitive to light, are tired, and fairly useless all morning. Too much painting and you have a headache, are sensitive to light, are tired and fairly useless all morning, but you have the urge to go out and do more. It's like dope. With a hangover, I don't want to smell the stuff. With painting, I want to dive right back into it.

The horrid painting in the other room beckons. I must go. I have no choice. I see gobs of gouache in my future.

I should have called Jared over last night and opened a bottle of the good stuff...

Posted by erik at October 18, 2005 10:57 AM | TrackBack