Notes from the MM Kent Journal
Kent 11-22-08
I've almost finished the poster "Celebrate 2009", that I've been working on for 6 months. The original is ink and watercolor. I developed the idea from a small oil painting I did alla prima last year. Mucha has been one of my favorite artists of all time, although art historians have passed him by. I guess his art doesn't have a capital "A". There will be more posters to come. I'm pretty happy about making some art that is accessible to everyone. It's just a poster, but a nice one. I do believe the post-modern era is over, thank goodness, since I never felt like I belonged in it.
Seeing now some respite from the studio construction project and the opportunity to paint again is a big relief.
Kent 10-9-08
There has always been a sense of desperation in my life- a risky element, a wager that I'm equal to some self-imposed challenge. It comes in waves, compulsive, this desire to live completely; this abject absence of boredom.
Yesterday stucco/plastering the studio gallery's interior walls. Last week staining the wainscoating and door frames. Saltillo tile will be the next few days' work. Determined to finish this pass by November 2nd. Seeking reward in the realized vision. Working 5th year into a 3 year plan. Left side of my brain happy- right side yearning for more.
Still, my roots in Fayetteville are growing, and there is promise of flight soon.
Kent 9-10-08
Progress on the Studio for 2 weeks. Validation in the form of acceptance of my small still life "Quince" into the American Impressionist Society National Juried Show in Palm Desert, CA. Longing to paint again.
Kent 8-22-08
Flapping these ragged wings, still I manage to soar, however briefly. Success is such an inward thing. I'll be working toward my November 2 Studio Opening for the next 2 months. Finishing with the construction, that is. It's been 5 years coming. We'll see. Vediamo.
Golsa
Kent 7-7-08
Immersed in painting and fluent the past month or so. Plein air figures in motion at the Farmer's Market. Days or weeks after starting on location, I'm putting successive waves of paint onto some of these paintings. Another shift. Another period of growth. Learning Italian.
Kent 4-21-08
By using transparency, abstract passages and a variety of edges amid realistic renderings, I am able to indicate that things really do extend beyond the edges we ordinarily see. It is our our own perception that draws the boundaries. Through painting, these boundaries break down, and I feel intimately connected to my subject and my world. I’m happy to risk sounding trite by saying my painting is essentially about love.
Whether in the presence of a beautiful and intelligent woman, or an exquisite Iris blossom; in the midst of nature or on location at my local farmer’s market, I’m painting subjects that create acute emotions. So in a sense, my subject is the emotion itself. I see my principal task as loving this world as deeply and profoundly as I can, and I’m forever thankful for the opportunity to be an artist.
Kent 4-18-08
What does an artist do?
We shift the point of view- our own and the viewer's.
I'm mostly interested in painting the places where an edge is lost,
where positive and negative space share the same value, where a figure extends beyond the skin.
Kent 3-5-08
Imagine this or something better:
Coming to the beach, yesterday.
I found sand and water, unattached
Except by light, and sky:
Easy play.
Here is magic afoot,
Holding back, then dipping into
An ocean wet and flowing.
Dancing now, in and out
Becoming the ocean
Becoming the beach.
I became human.
Kent 2-9-08
Nourishment
Asking for a secret
I sidled limbward into branchy grace
Absorbing the breath of leaves,
Glimpsing highlight, skyhole,
Finding no way in.
Shadows and musk, quivering
Below the bark - nourishment.
Hold this drippy space against time,
Reach in a slow upward spiral
Beyond my grasp. Next I know,
I’m climbing.
Kent 1-28-08
The place between: "This is my last living moment ". . . and "There is all the time in the world", is where I'm living. Sort of breathless equilibrium. I've spent almost 5 years preparing to be fully engaged in this art process. Last bits of the studio are coming together. What now? Wash brushes.
Kent 1-11-08
Yearning to paint
after 3 months of juggling projects, working on finishing my house and
studio. On the 3rd session
Kent 8-14-07
Full Canvas
Turn. . . like this.
Blessing,
Undressing the other,
Forgotten side of your face.
Try this. . . here . . . here.
Oh, hello.
Gold and blue light pools,
Trailing . . . tendrils touching,
Deeply drawing.
Drawing out the sacred line,
Matching tone for tone.
I’m aching, and
You wheel Northward . . .
Full canvas.
The morning began with a thunderclap and drew me out of bed with a downpour of rain. Dripping now, and the early birds are out exuberantly serenading me, the porch-sitter.
In my art as in so many things, the question is the important thing. Formulate that, and the answer immediately arrives.
I keep asking, “Can I set myself free as an artist?” Sure enough, by allowing myself to depart from literalism, both in my market studies and figure studies, I’ve managed to be-wing myself.
“I call it enchantment,” she said, becoming my vision as my vision became her. The artist soars, riding the sustained exquisite pleasure, suspended in the updraft, making jazz art with paint. He says, “ I paint love.”
-MM Kent 6-8-07
Out here peeking into the quiet desperation- the world’s and my own.... the giving up of the spirit ... the "settling" ...the rooting - past wingedness, like an old houseplant unable to produce any but the most feeble and fragile new growth- an old pattern, unchangeable.
Feeling the fear of the trap.
My today, cut from the stencil that is all my yesterdays. Each yesterday contributing its contour. When 50 times 365 yesterdays make a stencil, one more contribution is infinitely small.
I’ve come for this oracle to the ocean’s edge. It’s this endless washing of the waves over the sands of time, it’s the infinitessimal grain of sand that speaks, that summates, that summons.
(I’m being haunted by images of the angel bones.... the wing sockets and breast yoke....the sound of bare feet on sharp stones and hot concrete)
MM Kent
- Gulf of Mexico
1/21/01
Rockport Harbour- 8x10 oil