The Cat, The Flood and Rothko
April 17, 2009 by Janice
Hmph. I am no longer in control. Last Saturday, the cat woke up especially early just to spill water all over this piece. Yes. Flooded it. No. The irony did not escape me. Water seeped quicker than a lake through a faulty levee all over everything I had done so far, and rendered the paper tissue. Soggy, wet, fragile tissue. Would the paint run? Would the paper tear? Was this piece history?
Yes. Ironic.
Do I panic when things like this happen? Nope. Nope, nope, nope. THAT doesn’t get you anywhere. Do I think about all the unfinished, in progress work, the bits of marks where my ideas trace their existence. Oh, yes. They are evidence that I exist. Trailings of who I am. Marks of the creative impulse that one feline swipe has overtaken in a second. Sheesh, an art critic?
Or just another piece of what I am to discover.
There’s a tear in one part, some edges are more frayed, it is no longer pristine, but the color seems to be holding. It would all depend on the body of that Thai paper. How much of what can it take? So I let it rest, I would know more when it dried.
Breathe. Just breathe. Surrender again to a moment beyond my control.
Hm, maybe I would read some more in the Power of Art. I have been wanting to get to the part about Rothko. I flipped open the book and began. Oh no. Just great. The first paragraph opens with lines about fear, grief, anxiety and art. ( What’s up with this particular Saturday?) And Simon Schama opens with questions. I cannot seem to get away from those. Although I could sure use a few answers at the moment. And here’s his big one. Here’s one of the things he opens with:
“Can [art] slam the brakes on the relentless business of life, fade out the buzz and cut straight through to our most basic emotions: anguish, desire, ecstasy, terror? ”
I raised an eyebrow and cast a glance at that pitiful rumple of soaked paper, looked back at the book. “Not likely at the moment,” I scoffed, and read on. Because Rothko was on a journey. Hm, a fellow homo viator? His time was between the wars, tumultuous transitioning time. And he was feeling his way to his place. I wonder if he lived with a cat? One who now wore a smirk as it licked it’s paws.
What happens to artists when the world as we know it changes? Rothko felt deeply that art too needed to change. The narrative, figurative work was not the ticket for him. He wanted color to act. He wanted it “to be breathed” onto the canvas. He wanted more than NOW. He wanted timeless. I so get that.
So he poked and prodded and insisted until he broke through. Hm, I turned the pages, saw new paintings I had not seen at the Rothko Chapel or anywhere in D.C. or New York either. I saw one that looked amazingly like a Dali, a Miro, or a Kandinsky…wow. Hm, intuitive searching, trails of questions asked.
And then the phrase appeared, the one that I most needed to see: ” Ragged indeterminate borders are crucial to Rothko’s emotive picturing both at the perimeter of the painting and in the frayed seams he tears between the large color zones so they don’t read as boundaries at all….but as a visible glimpse of some glowing bed of light. “
Without those intentional imperfections, frayed soft edges of color, that glow he’s setting up, his paintings have no heart? Remember his times. Hard edges, were all the rage. Pop art about paint was in vogue. Screaming everywhere. Cubists were fracturing space. And here he makes soft edges, a tear in the paint, a whisper of some other layers. He’s showing you his heartbeat.
I looked over at that cat. Who was now smiling like my little Buddha.
Well, edges, huh? You want me to play with edges? I reached for the hair dryer…
(I hope you have a great weekend. Just so you know, I found a new Naughty Margarita here in town, made from Prickly Pear. Yes, calls for a bit more research I am thinking. )
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Oh, man, that cat! “Ragged, indeterminate borders,” eh? Well, there you go! Rothko would approve! Have a great weekend, Janice! That Naughty Margarita’s sounding pretty good to me.
sue’s last blog post.."Every portrait that is painted is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter.” (–Oscar Wilde)
Had the cat been reading the post about alluvian landcapes…?!
Glad you’re still smiling
Joanna Young’s last blog post..Time for Some Breathing Space
They have those Prickly Pear margaritas by the pitcher…just saying..
And that cat is totally into alluvian.
Did you strangle the cat?
Was the paint from KP?
Am I responsible?
Will you sue?
Should I leave town?
Good…cause I am…leaving town soonish
Don’t rush to sue pls.
parisbreakfasts’s last blog post..ParisBreakfast is 3