Michael -- All of what you say sounds reasonable to me. From a distance, it sounds as though the satisfactions as you work are closer to what I imagine a mysic composer feels than to a writer's experience.
A writer can fail in two ways: He can be shooting for the wrong effect, or her can choose the wrong words to occasion that effect in his readers. When you say, "I drew it with the right kind of pressure and release, and the like," that sounds comparable to the writer's choosing his words. When you say, "Sometimes, I have to kill one of my children. I have to erase or paint over a part I really liked a lot. That is not a pleasant realization, but the rest of the painting suffers unless I eradicate the unfit part," that sounds familiar to me as a writer. A scene or speech, though nicely done in itself, may later prove to be counter-productive in the larger scheme. But have you ever "finished" a work, and been happy with it, only to look at it much later and decide it's not so good after all? In a message dated 3/3/10 11:30:44 AM, [email protected] writes: > On Mar 3, 2010, at 11:14 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > >> or "I have something to tell people." Never. It's always, "I like that > >> piece for x, y, or z reasons." I can generally isolate what aspects of > the > >> work have a strong impact on me > >> > > Are you talking about your own work, or someone else's? > > Actually both, but in slightly different ways. When I am painting or > drawing I > know when something good has happened. That part is really good, the line > is > right, the shading or coloring or brushwork, etc. Mostly that arises from > my > sense of fitness: that line is precisely fitted to the shape it's > delineating, > or I drew it with the right kind of pressure and release, and the like. > Reflecting on it as I write this message, I realize almost all of my > emotional > response comes from the sense of fitness, of something being proper and > appropriate where it is, as I made it, in relationship with other parts of > the > picture. > > It's the same when I view another person's work. I respond to how it's > made > noticeably more than to what it "says." To be fair and accurate, there are > great works whose subjects affect me as much as their formal properties. > One > of the things about representational work is that the referred subject is > incorporated into the work (by reference, as the lawyers say). Thus, I > then > fuse the formal means of the work to the referred subject and determine > how > well they fit together. That's one of the fatal flaws in Kinkade's (and > others') sentimentalizing pictures: his formal means are meager and > cliched > and the "meaning" of the subject is comparably trivial. > > Sometimes, I have to kill one of my children. I have to erase or paint > over a > part I really liked a lot. That is not a pleasant realization, but the > rest of > the painting suffers unless I eradicate the unfit part. > > > > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Michael Brady
