The Fine Art Blog of Darren Daz Cox

Wendi Kelly, noted writer and thinker  added some great points to my post on acrylic paints with glue added to make deep crackle textures.

Do I (and other fine art painters in general) think about the stability of the medium on the finished canvas, in effect, ensuring the historical legacy and possible re-sale value of the piece?

I think it is far easier to make a painting that will last for centuries than one that will ‘decay’, if you follow the tried, tested and taught rules!

I visited the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) in NYC (New York City) a few weeks ago and as always I was stunned by the seemingly permanant beauty of the paintings. Sure Pierre Renoir was using essentially the same type of quality oil paints that we use today but even the egg tempera (egg whites with pigment) on wood panels from the early Renaissance looked fresh and new, not to mention the Roman encaustic pieces, heck that’s pigment in wax!

Is elmers glue mixed into thick acrylic paints going to decay sooner than a traditional painting? I doubt it, here’s an ‘abstract’ one  from about six years ago that has been on my walls consistantly and seems identical to when it finally dried, and bear in mind the paint was about a quarter inch thick on the canvas when wet!

~* Snorkeling in Truk Lagoon – acylic on canvas 8×10 inches by Darren Daz Cox*~

But I didn’t consider the future when I made this one, it is a "quantum painting", my intentions, my thoughts, my memories are all part of this piece, wether anyone else can see it or not. When Yoko Ono put an apple on a ladder in her show, did she consider April 2008? No, the art existed then, now we have the memory. In the case of this painting, the main part was it’s creation and the joy I felt while watching the metamorphasis as it slowly dried from random paint into a picture. What’s left is a memory of a memory and the paint on the canvas!

Truk lagoon is a cool place – go visit!

~* Truk Lagoon circa early 80’s- photo by Darren Daz Cox*~

 Sometimes ‘quantum art’ doesn’t leave any tangiable traces yet still exists, the final painting by paul Gauguin for example. When his young Tahitian wife finally died, the last memory of what it actually looked like was probably lost forever because she burned their home down, with his final painting on the walls, right after Gauguin died.

I imagine it – therefore it exists.

My favorite painting

My favorite painting is the one I can’t see
somewhere on the walls of a hut in Tahiti
the last mortal act of a soul so completely
absorbed in itself that it reached majesty.
Those tangible dawbs that remain should inspire
us all to strive for our truth
I know what my favorite painting looks like
even though there is now no proof.

~*Darren Daz Cox*~

Probably the most famous, or infamous painter who’s work has self-destructed from not following "the rules" was Albert Pinkham Ryder. You might know him from his The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse) painting. A.P. Ryder was brilliant, one of my favorite artists and a total quantum painter! Like GG Allin, A.P. Ryder did his art for himself first and then for the rest of the world even if that was a very small world.

Sometimes the process of making the art is the art and what everyone else sees is simply the ‘left-overs’. Was Woodstock just the concert? Consider the act of painting as a form of meditation and a game while it is being created and not necessarily a methodical series of steps to make a completed product.

 So should the artist be concerned with longevity of the painting? Yes, if he intends the art to be for others, but no if it is quantum art (as quantum art exists outside partially outside of space and time!).

Work thou for pleasure; paint or sing or carve

The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.

Who works for glory misses oft the goal;

Who works for money coins his very soul;

Work for the work’s sake, then, and it may be

That these things shall be added unto thee.^[1]

^{Poem by American Illustrator and writer Kenyon Cox}

Originally posted 2008-04-07 11:20:33. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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