| WorkThe Difference between Matter and Light The Difference between Matter and Light The difference between matter and light is that matter stays when it is not doing anything and light goes away when it isn’t doing anything. Matter prefers to be and light prefers not to be. Line is a dimension, it is the first dimension. Line can be by itself and realized on purpose, or it can be the result of two areas touching, like cracks in the sidewalk. In light it is any elongated and thin area where light isn’t, or it can be projected in any color, or it can be contained like neon. The thing to remember about line is that it cannot be picked up and carried when it’s by itself. That is what makes it different from the second dimension, which is the next dimension, which is something that can be picked up and carried. In that sense, the third dimension can roll, be sat on, and pushed. When line is made from light, nothing can be done with it and that enters into the fourth dimension, which is not talked about because that is what the fourth dimension is. Other than that, line was last seen in the works of Jackson Pollock and first seen in the works of Botticelli. Before line there was the dot. Dots are broken lines. A child sees best when he is crying because his vision clouds with water and makes any strong form liquid, thus ameboid areas that are dots. Seeing in dots has gone away, it went away when anyone stopped crying. Primitive people cry a great deal of the time, or they naturally have very watery eyes because that is the way they know how to see. I was taught that the dot dimension is called the zero dimension. The combination of line and dot is an engraving. Whenever an engraving is available to be looked at the observer colors it when he sees it and colored engravings came as naturally as engraving, but color is last and it is always on top. If color is on the bottom it becomes a hue and that hue changes and agrees with whatever color is put on top. I thought red was rich and artificial like fingernail polish red and lipstick red from the dime store. Which is the same as Christmas red or red dresses, and when I got my first set of oil paints I opened all my reds first. The one I was most interested in was Venetian red and it turned out to be an earth red. I still don’t know the difference between Venetian red and Indian red. Then I sent for a tube of red called light red, knowing it was surely like lipstick, but it turned out to be a very permanent earth red again but very much lighter. I mixed these reds with everything that seemed possible for them to turn to a ruby red, but found there was no such red in Artist’s Colors. When I got to the Chicago Art Institute I found Alizarin Crimson which I learned was the base of red and it could be turned into lipstick red with the help of light oranges, yellows and a bit of white. By that time I was so interested in Greek Pottery and primitive colors I was no longer believing in lipstick red. Then I found the Mars family. The Mars family of color is a basic collection of color that is all earth tone. I have never seen a Mars blue, and if there were such a blue it would be the blue machines are painted. That is a blue with a mixture of orange so that the blue turns towards a green like fresh machine grease. Finally I found Cadmium red, but was not encouraged to use it by any teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago. Any orange, but not bright red. This is one of the main signatures of any student coming from Chicago. There are always somber stains under bright colors and these stains are sediment from the dye in Alizarin Crimson and Thalo Green. By hook crook and neglect, I avoided the color course at the Art Institute. I took the anatomy course, which everyone dreaded because it was taught by a white-haired lady who spent all her time collecting and presenting the requirements for those students who were majoring in education. She would lecture for an hour on bones, mostly holding the hand of a skeleton and looking at the floor while talking and talking. One could see she was very interested in the subject of education, performed all her chores perfectly, collected the best information and presented it all just like the requirements listed, but the lady couldn’t teach. When I was at the monastery I didn’t study Latin and when I was at an art school I didn’t study color. During the lectures on anatomy I met the students who were taking all the required subjects in order to be able to teach art and some showed me what the color course was like. It was an obvious process of mixing white with black and painting little square patches until the black was no longer detectable. The same process was done with red yellow and blue, but I never found out what was done with orange purple and green. Now I know anything can be done with orange purple and green. Color does not come to one in a package like grammar, it comes like the language one first speaks. When red is introduced in a classroom it is impossible to do anything about it because everything has already happened. We are made of red. Blue is sight. Yellow must be met sometime in life. My first conscious use of red was when I was coloring in a coloring book and made a little girl’s dress red and her raincoat orange. Aunt Renie (Irene Deem Ottensmeyer, the artist's foster mother) came by me to see what I had colored, hit me on the head and told me not to ruin my coloring book. Orange and red were forbidden when used together and it was a great day when I found Tiepolo used orange and red together in one fabric. I also copied Christmas cards with watercolor, and my best watercolor was of a Scottie dog with a Christmas wreath around its neck. The wreath was red and the dog was black, the decorative articles were white. I showed my watercolor to everyone and everyone said they didn’t understand how a wreath could be red. I showed them the Christmas card and had them see for themselves that the wreath was red with white decorations, but they told me it was alright if the printing on the Christmas card was black red and white, but it was not alright when I did it with watercolor. Another copy I made was of a beautiful red-haired girl in a green dress. It was a Jon Whitcomb illustration for an advertisement and I enjoyed copying it so much I included her name that had been written in marvelous brush letters across the top of the illustration. Her name was Ginger Ale. Red, black and white is the best combination of colors. Red is always somewhere to be seen and when it’s with black and white it is working its clearest impact. Trucks are mostly red white and black, so is first grade and so are extra advertisements in newspapers. I always put some red in anything I did until I went to art school and once in the eighth grade when we were introduced to compasses and protractors we were assigned to make designs with these instruments. I made a lovely series of circles with half circles inside until they came out looking like daisies. I colored my designs with two colors only, orange and blue. When I was finished I saw I had not used red so I drew a red border around the entire design. Sister Bertilla said I had not drawn the designs, someone older had done them for me because I could not possibly know that much. Blue and orange, it is true looks very wise and very studious, but with a red border it becomes Matisse. It’s all in the combination of two colors, then one color with black and white, then one color with white, in that order. One color with white looks religious because it is religious. There is no such combination as three colors because it must always end up being two colors and another. Like blue and orange, then another like a red border. When there are more than two colors in a painting something unaccountable happens which is like animals in a zoo, which is in itself alright, but unnatural. The concept of a zoo could not be until color was understood so that it was no longer primitive, then the primitive could be introduced. More than two colors in a picture introduces the primitive, but it isn’t primitive because the other side is known, the civilized side is known and practiced. Any civilized painter cannot be primitive on purpose unless there is a zoo. Nowadays primitive applies to things that are not done very well, but more than two colors used in a painting reflects primitive, but isn’t primitive. Everybody enjoys things that are not done very well only if they know the other side. Isadora Duncan. So when Picasso’s Woman Before a Mirror comes along it tells the story between done very well and not done very well. Woman Before a Mirror always comes along because many colored paintings come along and look at you. Paintings with two colors are looked at and paintings with many colors look at you; like a zoo. Painting with two colors does not mean merely the use of two flat colors put on a panel next to black or white like a cheap print or a stained glass window or like a Mondrian. Two colors can be mixed together and have black or white added. There is no end to the possibilities and when the painting is completed even a third color can be added and the painting completed again. It will still be two colors and therefore self-composed and the third color will just have to remain being the third color. This is the beginning of a painting telling anyone what to do. It first tells the artist what to do, then it continues telling anyone seeing it what to do, what to see. That’s why any painting wants to be seen, that’s why any one wants to see a painting. And so it goes.
Notebook entry 1974
|