A 2-D interlude

[GlennT]

For a colorful break from sculpture, here are three 9" x 12" paintings I have done as part of a very large series (hundreds) in progress of views of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, a 5,400 acre area where scientists come from around the world to study and do experiments. The study of "ecology" as known today began here in the 1930's. Aside from the experimental plots and dirt roads, the area is largely untouched and full of natural beauty. Eventually the series will have its own page on my website: www.glennterryart.com

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by GlennT

For a colorful break from sculpture, here are three 9" x 12" paintings I have done as part of a very large series (hundreds) in progress of views of the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, a 5,400 acre area where scientists come from around the world to study and do experiments. The study of "ecology" as known today began here in the 1930's. Aside from the experimental plots and dirt roads, the area is largely untouched and full of natural beauty. Eventually the series will have its own page on my website: www.glennterryart.com

I love the work style of French impressionist painters: Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir... and your paintings seem to be on that groove.Love them.

[Kilkenny]

I like the energy, and love the sense of the paint and colour range/richness of the last two. These two take you in and absord the eye and brain. I also like the restraint of the first piece, but I'm not sure about the 'pretty' styling of the trees.

[evaldart]

Very good work Glenn, these things are undoubtedly improving you in all possible ways. 2-d interludes )and 2.5) are not as different as I once thought from our normal forays into the maniacal torture of wrestling with REAL matter. Perhaps I'm getting old and waifish, but I am seeing greater and greater possibilities in the biceps of the intellect. Go figger. (and yes, paintings are waifish).

[Dries]

Good work Glenn, text book execution on the last two paintings focus points. You are fortunate to spend time in such beautiful surroundings and thank you for sharing.

[Mack]

Yes, I like the paintings also...they give one a good feeling.

[evaldart]

I like the 3rd one best.

[GlennT]

Thanks for the comments. This project came about as I would walk through this area with my wife, and get the "good feeling" as Mack describes, thinking how many beautiful areas, vistas and close-ups, would make great subjects for painting, especially under different light conditions.
The first 23 paintings in the series are currently on display in the main building of the CCESR.

[ironman]

Hey Glenn,
I think you're a better painter than sculptor, nice work.
Jeff

[raspero]

I think you're a better painter than sculptor, nice work.

I'm not sure about that; I haven't seen your sculpture, but I do know you are a damn good painter.

Richard

[GlennT]

Thanks for the comments. Here are three of my sculptures, from which you may draw conclusions or not, in as much as sculpting and painting are as different as night and turnips.

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by GlennT

Thanks for the comments. Here are three of my sculptures, from which you may draw conclusions or not, in as much as sculpting and painting are as different as night and turnips.

Glenn, technically speaking your sculpture reflects a higher quality than your painting experty, but creatively speaking, you seem to have more freedom at 2D. Your sculptures are perfect perhaps, but lack that insightful, creative spark I sense on your paintings. Maybe, I`m bias against the classic overdone style. God knows.

[GlennT]

Nelson, that is a very interesting observation worthy of its own thread topic. We have been trained in the last century or two to equate freedom in creativity with expressive strikes that are laid in once and not further refined, like a sketch.

In landscape painting, I try to create a sense of atmosphere that combines the freedom of gesture with certainchosen areas to focus more detail. My figurative painting is generally tighter and more akin to my sculpture in that regard.

When I sculpt the human figure, I have in mind a level of "perfection" that I want to achieve in order for it to seem alive and complete to a standard that I hold. I work it until I get there, and certainly hope not to overwork it. Yet in all of that, I feel more connected and "free" than in anything else I do. There is no loss of freedom for me---it is a total connection to who I am as a person and as a sculptor. For me this is a larger freedom than the freedom of isolated quick expressive gestures as used for the application of material.

[evaldart]

Any pursuit of "perfection" is ruinous. Any effort that is affected by such an intention will be stiffened and wrought to , at best, an illustrative bauble. Such is good for function, but not for art. So many figurative clay works obliderate all possibilities of uniqueness by being realistically caricature'd. It is apparent to me, also - like Nelson, Glenn that you are tending to more significant things in these little paintings than you might be in figurative sculpture (especially faces).
Fortunately you are a man of many mediums and your painting can teach you things about sculpture...and the lesson is that generality is far more vital and dynamic than specificity. And your painted portraits will learn from these landscapes too.
Excellence and perfection are BAD for art...B-A-D.
I suspect that you know this, but there are things in you that you have been unable to put aside that are holding you back.
But I have faith in you Glenn (and belive be, I dont have faith in many things at all) you will persevere.

[GlennT]

Originally Posted by evaldart

Any pursuit of "perfection" is ruinous.
Excellence and perfection are BAD for art...B-A-D.

I can hardly believe this is written by a serious artist, but you are, so...

Perhaps your idea of perfection and mine differ. I certainly don't mean perfection in the sense of a flawless surface. You will not find me smoothing my surfaces to the end of erasing any and all "imperfections" until the life has been bled out of a work, for example.

Perfection for me in sculpture is having a vision for the work which is its ideal state, and trying my best (though not quite getting there, because it seems not attainable) to make the work as good as that vision.

Excellence is a virtue which combines pure vision and skillfully focused work. I cannot possibly imagine what could be found wrong with that.

[ironman]

As my friend Rene Descartes once said, "People who strive for perfection achieve nothing."
Evaldart is right.
I agree with Nelson, your paintings are more alive and that's the quality that prompted me to say (post #9) that you're a better painter than a sculptor.
Excellence is not a virtue where art is concerned, striving for excellence only inhibits creativity and the result may be excellent but it won't be art but a dead and lifeless thing.

[GlennT]

Originally Posted by ironman

As my friend Rene Descartes once said, "People who strive for perfection achieve nothing.".

Decartes also got it exactly backwards when he said, "I think, therefore I am".

Everyone who achieves greatness, in sports as one example, strives for perfection in what they do. What alternative is suggested? That one strive for...mediocrity? One is certain to achieve mediocrity if aiming for it. Always set the bar higher rather than lower.

I don't expect to achieve perfection, but I am happy to aim for it as closely as possible, such as described earlier; the perfection as perceived in pure vision.

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by GlennT

Decartes also got it exactly backwards when he said, "I think, therefore I am".

Everyone who achieves greatness, in sports as one example, strives for perfection in what they do. What alternative is suggested? That one strive for...mediocrity? One is certain to achieve mediocrity if aiming for it. Always set the bar higher rather than lower.

I don't expect to achieve perfection, but I am happy to aim for it as closely as possible, such as described earlier; the perfection as perceived in pure vision.

Wow, another controversial point. In my view artists are perfectionist, as much as the effort may result futil, it`s a fact to me that in the sense Glenn states perfection,artists seek perfection to express their inner motif regardless of how misterious or dificult the message appears, regardless of anything ! In your case Glenn, perhaps it`s an inherent condition of portraying figuratively in the most classic sense, I feel more physical perfection in your sculpture than in your paint off course, again, does my bias view blures that real unatainable perception we`re talking about? Probably, as much as "there`s beauty on everything, but some of us just fail to see it" May I ad, perfection should not be the purpose, the goal, the essence, but what ever style, medium, or reason to engage mind and soul with materiality, being as effective and relevant as possible "for the time" will depend on the degree one strives and keeps on trying to attain the unatainable, but simply remain as just another try... To settle for less betrays the purpose.

[GlennT]

I think Nelson that you have said before that English is not your native language but I thought you expressed yourself very well in that last post and I agree with all of it.

Good that you clarified the point that perfection is not the goal, rather the pursuit of it is merely part of the means to attaining the goal, which is to communicate your vision as fully and completely as possible.

[Nelson]

Originally Posted by GlennT

I think Nelson that you have said before that English is not your native language but I thought you expressed yourself very well in that last post and I agree with all of it.

Good that you clarified the point that perfection is not the goal, rather the pursuit of it is merely part of the means to attaining the goal, which is to communicate your vision as fully and completely as possible.

Sorry Glenn, I realized my redundance. Thanks.

[raspero]

It seems we may not only be collapsing two words here that have different meanings: excellence and perfection, but either one can be used (expressed) in more than one way. Used as a place to get to, as a state to finally attain, they mean one thing; while as a place to come from, as a commitment, they are something else entirely. As such, they allow for creation, for magic, for freedom. In the first instance, you already know where you are supposed to go; the only thought is getting there. It's already dead and done. While as a place to come from, you could end up damn near anywhere; anything is possible. I like that kind of excellence.

Richard

[evaldart]

If I would have to choose a too-trodden word to describe the motivational intent of art it would be "transcendence". Because transcendence dismisses the low-bar set by notions of excellence and perfection. It tunes to the momentum of continuance at any cost. Its aims are never thwarted by a finality. If you are still stuck in the place where you imagine that your created things are the art, then you will bother with the finitude of ideals. But if you require more from your will, you will ask it, you will force it, to extend through every piece as if those baubles were just punctuation in some endless prose (I have a fancy for endless prose).
The creative drive is not searching for stopping points by merely identifying the completion of yet another thing. It is urged by GOING points...each forsaken artifact propelling it further and further. They are a wake of discard, our paintings and sculptures and whatnot.
This is not an argument between "looseness" and refinement...between skill and brutish nuance. It is an argument between accepting the mildness of some "ideal", which ever is built by what has already happened,; and improving through some dangerous change that was self-initiated in the unfathomable interest of what might just BE ABLE to happen.

thats all.

[GlennT]

Originally Posted by evaldart

It is an argument between accepting the mildness of some "ideal", which ever is built by what has already happened,; and improving through some dangerous change that was self-initiated in the unfathomable interest of what MIGHT be able to happen.

That was better at communicating what you meant, but still we have a different understanding, now as regards to the word "ideal". This may also reflect our different approach to the creative process.

For me, the ideal to which I refer is the ideal of realizing a vision. My creative process involves meditating, reflecting, opening up to an inspirational vision that will guide the development of the work. This is not based or built on what has already happened, it is a fresh, present glimmer of a future possibility, made possible if and only if I am willing to provide the sustained effort to take it there.

I don't mind if the technique of my work looks like is informed by those gone before me...they are my teachers and I thank them for the gift of their experience and example to learn from. I find working with fresh ideas or timeless ideas that interest me more exciting than re-inventing the wheel of technique in order to appear different.

[evaldart]

Wishing to "appear different" and wishing to reference "timelessness" are more the same than they are different. Neither exalts originality. Both are shortcuts to something. They are lazy viewers (some critics, art professionals, academics, touring gapers, etc) who rush to deposit an individual work or an artist into some category. They are reaching first for cues and will permit their experience of the work to be tainted by that which they already have experienced. A recipe for a diminished and unimpactful interaction with an art object. A secured and advancing artist is ALWAYS wildly "different". Even if those differences require real WORK (by the viewer) to see.
Glenn, you work much more subconsciously that you know. And your work - even when it is decidedly illustrative - possesses "tones" that are obviously (from the limited manner that I can approach them) not bound-by or aiming-at "ideals". They are representative of your toil and indeed your willingness to persevere. You too much let the language of your faith meddle into the affairs of your creativity (more ideals). And we all have our "faiths" (even me) but such things, no matter how seemingly engrossing, must not dilute or taint our creative purity - some things must be protected. I think you "protect" pretty damned well. Much better than you'd let on.

[rika]

Whether Glenn's paintings or sculptures are better is not the most important issue and conclusion here. That will be considered (and voiced) by the preferences of the individual viewer. What is so evident is that they seem to be originating in different -and even opposing (!)- corners of his creative self. That is so interesting, I always get excited when I see this. That's why it is so important for a creative person to tap into many sources and resources, explore mediums and materials, ultimately put forward/exhaust their full potential.

I've seen other paintings in this series posted somewhere else, and I must say, regardless of what you think and say, Glenn, you did something totally shocking, self-revolutionary during the process of this ongoing project. You did not post the evidence, those paintings here, but something is brewing in there and reaching the surface. I am looking forward to seeing where it leads you.