Doubt

Some lovely coincidences this week. Found this beautiful work of Eva Hesse that I had never seen before, done in 1966. Then another work of hers appeared. Again, I don't have the title but it was done about the same time. She has been an inspiration to me since I first found her work in the late '60, but the work I was familiar with were her sculptures and I hadn't realized that she was also a painter;  and a great friend with Sol LeWitt. [Link here] She was also an artist for whom self-doubt was a persistent challenge.

Eva Hesse

Eva Hesse

There has been a lot of self doubt about this past while, as I wonder what am I doing with charcoal, and while it never goes away completely, I know after all these years that the voice softens, then whispers, then fades away. Until the next time. Meanwhile this is great advice  to read.

"Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping,…Stop it and just DO!…

Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety…

You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!…

Try to do some BAD work – the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell – you are not responsible for the world – you are only responsible for your work – so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be…

I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty you [sic] mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that’s that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I’m sure you know all that. You also must know that you don’t have to justify your work – not even to yourself."

A letter from Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse

We Ran Away

And drove down to visit the Clarke,  the Williams College Museum of Art and Mass M.O.C.A which had the O Canada show, complete with an intro and I quote "Confederated in 1867.....” Since when did confederation become a verb? Needless to say I was less than impressed with this exhibition. But at the Williams College Museum of Art there was a beautiful show of Sol LeWitt: The Well Tempered Grid. This is what the museum has to say about his grids, a structure close to my heart. "Inspired by his first encounter with the work of photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) in the late 1950s, LeWitt began experimenting with a loosely structured grid in several large oil paintings of 1960, based on the Muybridge motif of a running man. By 1962 he had simplified his use of this format to exclude figurative elements, and by 1964 he was making his first wall-mounted grid structures. When LeWitt made his first wall drawings in 1968 he used the grid as the underlying structural principle. Thereafter grids became a pervasive matrix in all of the media in which LeWitt worked—in his three-dimensional “structures,” drawings and gouaches on paper, photographic cycles, artist’s books, furniture, and wall drawings."  LeWitt was also a huge Bach fan [with a collection of 400 Bach audio cassettes] listening to Bach in the studio as he worked. And as an added treat, as we were wandering about, a piano tuner was tuning a harpsichord in one of the galleries. Just the sound of the repetitive AAA, BBB ect. was perfect.

SOL LEWITT, DETAIL FROM ALL COMBINATIONS OF ARCS FROM FOUR CORNERS, ARCS FROM FOUR SIDES, STRAIGHT LINES, NOT-STRAIGHT LINES AND BROKEN LINES

And for some extra fun, check out Edward Lifson's blog, Hello Beautiful, for his article on how the Sol LeWitt exhibition at Mass M.O.C.A was created. [Link here]  As he says " Almost an acre of LeWitt. They'll stay up for at least 25 years."

 While I find the acres of LeWitt overwhelming at Mass M.O.C.A, the Williams College Museum of Art has lots of the notebooks and some very beautiful graphite on black paper drawings. Much more intimate and closer to my sensibilities.

THE POSTER FOR LEWITT’S EXHIBITION AT THE SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS, 1976