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My college psych prof. said, "Free play is the only reliable course to mastery." It's the only quote I ever underlined in the entire notebook.
At the apex of his popularity, New York was awash in de Kooning imitators. But this anecdote from Robert Rauchenberg sums up de Kooning's take on what's required:
"One night, I asked Bill how he felt about most of the New York painters painting like him...He said, he didn't worry because they couldn't do the ones that don't work." p.58
De Kooning knew that the success of a painting project depended on his willingness to sacrifice his own hard-won formulae, to court failure at every turn.
In that spirit, today's post offers up a complete, uncensored sequence of drawings (progressing chronologically from the upper left) whose virtue is: they "don't work." These drawings are "free play" compositions.
This process yielded "flash_oasis_tidings" - the drawing I posted a few days ago that, for whatever mysterious reason, works.
Maybe process is the object.
Click here to launch video. (Quicktime 1.9 mb)
graphite on paper
On Thursday, I attended a standing room only gathering with bloggers of the photo ilk. Staged at the Soho Apple store, Gothamist.com hosted and organized "Photobloggers 2," a presentation of some of the best photographers NYC and the web offer.
Joseph O. Holmes, of joe's nyc, is currently involved in taking photos of unsuspecting people on the street. In conclusion to his presentation, he gave voice to the infrequently spoken but silently understood truism that the key to taking worthy photos of unaware strangers is to respect and love their humanity.
This passion was in evidence in all the other photobloggers across the broad spectrum of their interests.
Laura Holder of lauraholder.com has recently endeavored to remove the "stranger" from the taking of "stranger photos." Asking permission and a few comparative questions (What music are you listening to? What did you have for breakfast?) yields images of people presenting themselves to the camera. The unanticipated upshot: people are mostly happy and willing to connect and have their picture taken. Whether snapped candidly or in a staged portrait, the subject's humanness remains the through-line, coming and going.
The participating photographers, as well as many others, can be found on Gothamist's well curated list of photoblogger links.
