Author: sterlingsart

The ground I’m covering lately, with the new, square paintings on glass is somewhat familiar.

After taking a break from grad school in 2000, I began to make sketches in MS Paint that eventually turned into paintings. At the time these were a reaction to what I saw as an over-seriousness about being cool (a contradiction yes and at the time one I was not ready to receive) which I felt was a prominent theme among the abstractionists that were getting lots of shine in Houston and nationally at the time (my artists statement was, roughly, “yeah, video games and Saturday morning cartoons baby!”).

While my newer work intends to have a more direct line to Albers, as I’ve written, the earlier work above was a nod in the direction of Richard Anuskiewicz (for whom the former was a mentor). Both shared a quite well established interest in color theory, and also in perception. In addition to this relationship between bodies of work, I also hope to soon be in need* of a different strategy for production in my practice that looks more like this earlier body of work, which mirrored Richard’s approach to making (heavy emphasis on planning to make production easier in the sense of being straightforward). Organizing my work flow into “bites” that I can chomp off as time allows will be necessary. There will be time for free-form creativity.

*More to come, suffice to say, life is in flux. Also, I am grateful to have this be the challenge I need to solve (verses so many others which could be my lot).

This isn’t going to become a lesson in epistemology, I’m not that smart or well read.

Today, I caught an excerpt of a Sam Gilliam (RIP) interview that Hyperallergic reposted on their IG feed (youtube.com/watch). The full interview is available on Louisiana Channel (along with a lot of other good ones by a range of artists). The truth nuggets, paraphrased, are that a) abstract painting can be political because it asserts by its existence that there are things which we might not understand and that b) just recognizing something isn’t tantamount to understanding.

I also really got a lot from an Artforum interview with Jordan Nasser (FYI, there may be a pay wall, depending on how many free articles you’ve viewed this month) about the contradictions (hey-oh) of diasporic identity, the nuances of his relation to traditional craftmaking, and the role of artists in continuing cultural legacies. There’s an effort in Nassar’s practice to create understanding as well, I think of a similar kind to what Sam probably envisioned. I think they both refer not to “understanding” the noun which is the ability to perceive intended meaning in a specific way (so, decipher or interpret); instead they intend us to think about understanding the adjective– “sympathetically aware of other people’s feelings; tolerant.”

BTW, “yes” I do definitively think it is important right now for many more of us to make an effort to understand the lived reality of the peoples of the Palestinian state, not just over the last 6 months, and, certainly because of that context (and in general, to reconsider the tenants of Modernism and the idea of shared humanity).

PS, if you want to expand your understanding of other cultures by doing something here, locally, in the Triangle, go check out To Take Shape and Meaning.