Hello, bloggers!

By now we know that the Saints won the Super Bowl...

The game got me thinking about the way the game of football relates to my art.  Here's a post from before the game got underway on Super Bowl Sunday.

I got up early today (Sunday, February 7, 2010)...  Usually I paint purses very early in the morning, then I get on my Power Plate and get 15 or 20 minutes of exercise.  Then I go to my studio...

This morning I took 30-by-40-inch canvases—24 of them—and did a one-person Dip.  Then I got home and, to get ready to watch the hype and excitement of the Super Bowl, I sat in front of the ocean and listened to the soundtrack of Out of Africa, so that the excitement of football would be another jolt.

Then I started thinking about the similarities of what I do in my art and the people who are putting together the power of the game of football.  It’s not only a game of brute power, but also of mind power.  The ability to think of all these different moves—all the timing, the code words, the unspoken messages that go on during these Super Bowl games—are about super teams.

These are not amateurs.  These are people who are well trained, completely in charge of all of their senses, because they must be completely alert to everything around them and all of the pushing, shoving, tackling, and running that go on.  To keep yourself, for those periods of time, completely in tune with what’s going on, is something to behold and to be admired.

I try in my own little feeble way, to be similar in my studio.  It does affect my art.  I look at it as a learning ground.It struck me as I watched all the analysis of football, that there’s a great similarity between the game and my art:  the preparation and thought that goes into it before the game...

Geniuses are figuring out the different moves:   how the team will move, how the other team will respond, how a ball is being thrown in a direction and will be able to be caught and go on to a touchdown or a sizeable gain.

All of the infinite recognitions of the differences of space and time are taken into effect:  the wind, the rain, whether it’s cold or hot...  maybe even the perceived limp in one of the defense people; maybe in the weight difference between the line and how there’s a minute advantage to going one way or another, and how these things are not thought out in the field as cognizant events, but are really built into the psyche and perception and immediate recognition of the players.

It brings me to the kind of art that I hope to master, where I honor the power of the materials.

I am the conductor, not the dictator.  I work with the flow.  I can’t change yellow to black, I can’t reverse the flow of gravity; everything is going to be what it is within the framework.  And because of the methodology of my procedures, I have to react immediately.  That comes from observation, practice, and knowledge of what things are going to do placed within a particular field, whether it be linseed oil, polyurethane, water, etc.

The paints are all going to react in a predictable way.  But if I’m on the cliff in Ireland with a gale coming, or in my studio in Florida with the air conditioning on, or how am I going to tilt the canvases up or down to affect the viscosity—these are immediate reactions that are learned and stored within the unfathomable memory and instinct.

That’s why I believe telling an artist not to make a lot of art is counterproductive.  I think we learn new ways by breaking new ground.  But if we are going to be slaves to our minds and to the knowledge that we have, it detracts from our risk-taking and visionary processes.  That’s what the game is all about.

Our dreams could be intercepted, but if things go as you wish them to go, it’s a touchdown.

To me, the spice of life is risk.  Tolerable risk in a field where you know what you’re doing and are enjoying it and are a master but not a complete master—you are also a student.

At some point in time I may make a touchdown, and other times I may make a miss.

I love it, just as I enjoy the mystery, the power, the intrinsic manipulation of time, distance, weight, all perceived by a human being to transport an object from one place to another under great stress.  It’s a great field of learning, and I feel it very exciting.

Matt