The seventh day.

We had an interesting breakfast with 10 other people this morning at Le Bistro. Several artists were in attendance and getting queried, particularly by Paul, initially asking how different people approached the blank canvas.

The conversation morphed into a discussion of facility and technique versus conception. I made the point that the great illustrators like N.C. Wyeth could paint circles around 99% of the modernists. It takes many years to truly understand how to wield a brush and get a handle on the medium. Much of what passes for modern mastery, in my eyes is actually random, dumb sophistry that probably never deserved any kind of enshrinement whatsoever. But that's what makes the world go round, I guess. We all evaluate differently. In my rather parochial values system, craft is on at least an equal footing with vision.

I brought up Rothko. Color Field guy. He could slap color on a color, sold the stuff for millions. Very abstract shapes. And I know that N.C. could have done it with his eyes closed. He could wash down Rothko like a cool sauterne. But Rothko could never do Wyeth. Some things can't be faked. I would love to have sat with the Wyeths or Leyendecker, Parrish or Rockwell and studied their technique. Consummate craftsmen. I was blessed to sit many hours with the great Rick Griffin and learn something from his visionary approach and I will be forever grateful.

I tried my hand at aquatints a couple years ago. Now I realize that the master print maker Gene Kloss was still learning thirty years in and that it would take fifty years to even begin to learn her secrets. I think that our greatest artists are those that have the most intimate relationship with their media and tools. Beware of fashion.


***

A woman I know brought this Charles Bukowski book in for me to sell. It is the original 1963 edition of it catches my heart in its hands hand signed by the artist. I have seen it selling for $2400 on Abebooks.com. I need $600.00 for it. Dead mint with the crepe paper intact. All of the pages were hand pulled.




Buy a copy for the beatnik in your life.

16-bit Intel 8088 chip

with an Apple Macintosh
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive
.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.


Charles Bukowski