comments

1. Daryl Scroggins on November 29th, 2009 at 4:56 pm

   I’m intrigued by the way this seems to be drawn from a photograph taken just in front of the left knee, looking up. Hence the proportions. I wonder how this fits into your plan for the drawing. Is your aim to reduce the status of the figure? El Greco in reverse. Interesting foot, too. It strikes me as an artifact placed at odds with the expectations the figure generates: this guy, modest?

2. Coop on November 29th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

   Interesting analysis! The head is so small for metaphoric reasons, his belittlement of women indicating his own belittled brain, etc. The belly is big because he’s a big eater, etc.

3. Coop on November 29th, 2009 at 11:14 pm

   Words and tones are so hard to ‘read’ on a computer screen. I just now got what you meant about modest: the old Southern sense of not liking to be seen unclothed. Actually it’s purely technical, if that’s even the word. I just wanted to draw a figure with the leg and foot up like that. I have been working a great deal with nudes this month, mostly female nudes, with the legs and feet often in prominent positions.

4. Daryl Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 9:36 am

   Coop–I have just been thinking recently about the relation between reading a poem and reading a drawing. It seems to me that the effect of a drawing usually floods into one’s perception, displacing critical modes of thought for at least a few moments–except in the case of drawings that appear to have an agenda. And sometimes I think artists take advantage of this immediacy of impact–in good and bad ways. If a work clearly presents a narrative, it won’t do to say that it should be viewed uncritically as a pattern of shapes and lines. I know we both agree that many poets (particularly young ones) readily fall back upon the license of the poetic and the imperatives of self expression–but when we look at a poem we always have, in the backs of our minds, the question: Now why, exactly am I looking at this? And: Is this inviting me in, or is it only showing me what its creator is choosing to do at the moment? Anyway, we have talked about these things many times, my friend, but I would sure like to hear your thoughts about how the highly developed standards of artistic selection you bring to the making of your fine poems participates in what you do when you draw and what goes through your mind when you decide that a drawing is ready for presentation. I have seen you brood for months over a poem you are attempting to perfect, and you will show such a work to very few people before you are sure of it. Do you approach your drawings in the same way?

5. Coop on November 30th, 2009 at 11:02 am

   To a very great extent, my drawings are play. I want them to ‘look good’–the blend (or contrast) of colors, the flow of the lines, etc.–but I also simply have fun doing them. The thought (the agenda) behind a gathering of images might be ambiguous in my intention, as it can be in my poems, with no obvious reading being the preferred one. The reading I pointed toward in my comment above is not, I think, conclusive, as I don’t think that I have any more right than anyone else to interpret a drawing, even if the drawing is mine. With poems as with drawings, I don’t think authorial intent matters all that much when the work is done. If a viewer says, “The guy’s body is bigger than his head to emphasize the physicality of humanity over the intellect,” then I’m cool with that. If she or he says, “This is a patriarchal god toying with Woman as a lower order of humanity,” I’m cool with that. Even in my poems I play with the sound of the words (at the expense of the meaning of the words) a lot more than is generally acknowledged.

6. Coop on November 30th, 2009 at 11:24 am

   To tell the truth, I’m not sure my comments are all that helpful. Maybe someone else–Sheila? Rick? Lucy?–will have something to say.

7. Daryl Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

   I didn’t mean to sound strident, Coop, or to put you on the spot. I’m just actually curious about how your two ways of making art overlap or don’t. I draw some and have for most of my life, but I guess I’m not what you would call serious about it, and because I’m not I don’t really show it to anybody but Cindy or Mia. Lots of times Mia and I collaborate on drawings and paintings. Anyway, what intrigues me is this: you and I go way back in judging poetry (our own and the work of others), and we have some strong views about what one can “get away with” and can’t get away with. Also strong views about the thousands of people we encounter all the time who say “I just write for myself,” but then offer their work far and wide–usually wanting praise but quickly dismissing negative views. We sometimes read poems and say to ourselves–Jeez, try knowing something about what has gone on in poetry over the last 100 years before trying to write it. We have both also confronted with chagrin the many instances in which an artist will say of a work “Oh, it can just be any ‘ol thing anybody anywhere wants it to be or doesn’t want it to be.” So I’m wondering how this same sense of the need to develop a personal set of standards–or worthy aims and practices, whatever you want to call it–comes into play when you take up another art.

   About this drawing we have been talking about: you mention often that you don’t really have an aim, that the process is more like a kind of play, and that you don’t want to present something that has an “official” interpretation embedded in it. I’m wondering, though, what you would think if a person who didn’t know you from Adam saw this drawing and said: “Damn, this is shit–look at how it looks like he made the head small because the proportions are big at the bottom and he ran out of paper at the top.” It seems like there would be a number of ways you might respond to this: silence; laughter; a caustic comment about how one misses a lot when matters of form are all that registers; an appeal to one’s success with other works that forms an appeal to personal authority. But whatever way one responds, some responses tend to preclude others. I can’t say, for instance, that a viewer obviously “missed the more subtle implications” of the work–and then say that I myself don’t really see that there is anything there to be missed.

   Sorry to go on about it, but this is something I think about often with respect to my own writing. It’s always a risk to take that step of sending things out to be loved or stepped on or ignored, and I’m always curious about how different people stand up to that risk. What is the source of one’s confidence in such matters? For me it starts with a kind of existential view of the world and a sense of the demands of personal honesty (generally, people I don’t know aren’t interested in what I’m doing because I’m doing it). But there’s some gratitude and fuck-all-y’all thrown in there too.

8. Sheila Ryan on November 30th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

   Cooper’s words bring to mind Phil’s characterization of himself as simply “a man with a camera”. One common thread, it seems, is an irrelevance to the act of creation of consciously articulated ‘ideas’ as such.

   I reflect on my own fumbling experience, and I can honestly say that ninety-nine times out of a hundred I haven’t an idea in my head when I take a photograph or set down a sketch. In fact, when I am ‘making pictures’ I almost lose the capacity for verbal expression.

   As for after-the-fact evaluation or revision of our own creations, I suspect that for Cooper and Phil, as for me and others, it still may come down to a matter of seeing or hearing whether something works, be it a photograph, a drawing, or a poem.

   On the other hand, Cooper could just be a simpleton (she said with a nod and a sly wink).

9. Sheila Ryan on November 30th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

   Even in my poems I play with the sound of the words (at the expense of the meaning of the words) a lot more than is generally acknowledged.

   To which I reply, “Nacho cheese.”

10. Cindy Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    As for after-the-fact evaluation or revision of our own creations, I suspect that for Cooper and Phil, as for me and others, it still may come down to a matter of seeing or hearing whether something works, be it a photograph, a drawing, or a poem.

    Are you referring to whether others think it works, or to your own application of critical measure after the fact?

11. Sheila Ryan on November 30th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

    Good question, Cindy; in fact, that is pretty much what I am just now mulling over, as one of the questions that can be teased out of Daryl’s musings is, “How does the artist judge his own creations?”

    As for the reference you ask about, I was thinking about how I apply judgment to my own work.

    Still thinking.

12. Daryl Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 2:39 pm

    I’m big on “not knowing” when I write; I like to be surprised by what appears. But I would say that that works (when it does) because I have a grasp of certain skills that I don’t have to think about much when I use them, and because the “nothing” I am drawing on is actually a sensibility that reflects (again, when it works) years of having cared deeply about getting something just right–about not settling for “okay, close enough.” But where does this sensibility come from? It comes from my admiration of what other people have done and my ill-defined sense of what it might be possible to do that hasn’t already been done in the same way, better, by somebody else. It also has a kind of hope in it (sorry Lucy) that makes me eager to know how the people I care about most deeply will respond to what I do. I always want to be honest. If I say I don’t care what others think but then my feelings get hurt–I need to look more closely at what my real expectations are. In my view, the views of others are a necessary thing to push against–to keep myself from doing just anything and telling myself it’s brilliant.

13. Coop on November 30th, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    Well, I tried to post a comment a while ago, and CF’s server went bonkers and didn’t post it. That’s a good sign that I should stay out of this good discussion–which is mostly what I wanted to say anyway. Sheila (or was it our friend Melanie?) used to say, “Which is closer to being true: Everything is funny or nothing is funny?” In the spirit of that dichotomy, I offer, “Which is closer to being true: Cooper hasn’t got a brain in his head, or Cooper is just full of brains?” My answer to both is “The former”.

14. Phil Bebbington on November 30th, 2009 at 3:34 pm

    Fuck! I ain’t bright enough for this – Mmmmmm process, thoughts! I guess firstly nothing I do is with others in mind, I don’t feel that I am photographing for an audience, even though I may have a notion what my ‘audience’ might like or dislike – actually like as people rarely say what they dislike in my experience.

    What I am trying to acheive is like a subconscious notion – I know what is wrong more than what is right – I see a scene and think it doesn’t work rather than it does.

    Of course, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t care about peoples reaction to my photos, I guess the mere act of making them public is looking for some sort of affermation or something. Oddly though, if I am pleased with it, negative comments would not bother me at all – generally I show what I am pleased with – positive is good, negative is bad but doesn’t change my opinion of the shot – as long as I have achieved what I set out to I am happy.

    I’m not good at expressing my feelings and I am just that guy with a camera who reacts to what I see. Reading back over lots of words, not sure if I have addressed what is being said.

    I guess the bottom line is I am secure in my ability technique and creatively, I guess dislike for a photo might make me ask why – nothing more than that though.

15. Cindy Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 3:58 pm

    Everything is funny.

    Yes.

16. Sheila Ryan on November 30th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    That was my question, I believe, Cooper.

    And even then, I knew that everything is funny.

17. Daryl Scroggins on November 30th, 2009 at 4:04 pm

    I like what you say here very much, Phil. Especially this part: “What I am trying to achieve is like a subconscious notion – I know what is wrong more than what is right – I see a scene and think it doesn’t work rather than it does.” That does seem true–that it’s easier to see what doesn’t work than to select something and know it’s the best choice that could have been made. Your pictures and films never fail to do it for me, and whatever the mix of abilities, hopes, practices, aims–there’s not anybody out there who can do what you do the way you can do it.

    I guess some of what I’m trying to get at here is embodied in this question: If I think my singing sounds good in the shower, should I take it on the road? Should the people who care about me tell me the truth about this, or just get out of the way and let me “express myself”? I don’t think these things can really be answered in the abstract. But look at how many people go audition for things like American Idol, and are apparently devastated and absolutely perplexed to find that people beyond their immediate families are cringing and laughing about what they regard as a tone deaf person screeching.

    Seems to me that all art hovers around the question: Where do I stop, and where does the world begin? It’s the mystery of matching what moves one (in a playful sense, or a tragic sense…) to what seems to move others. If you take the “other” out of this, who is ever going to be in a position to say that you haven’t “expressed yourself” in exactly the way you wanted to? This doesn’t mean that I must let others decide what and how I pursue an art, it just means that we always live in relation to the Other, or we are just falling into our own little party of one.

18. Coop on November 30th, 2009 at 4:46 pm

    Daryl, I kind of like that idea of saying I made the head small because I ran out of space. But seriously– I considered replacing the head with a block, probably with writing upon it, as I have done in other drawings. Here instead is a recent drawing which plays with a similar pose: http://www.flickr.com/photos/r3nn3r/4128865090/

19. Rick Neece on November 30th, 2009 at 6:27 pm

    How words come to those of us who “write” is a mystery to me. How paintings, drawings come is even a further mystery. I write. I draw sometimes, though much to a lesser extent. In writing, sometimes a phrase will stick to me and I will follow it. Most of the time it comes from the most mundane thing I could place on a page. In my stint with Lish, somewhere along the line, he said something like, “Write a sentence, look for the mistakes and capitalize on them. Look for the place to insert the probe.” When I wrote Insomnia, I first wrote just the experience of waking up in the middle of the night, hearing Danny reciting his lessons in Japanese in his sleep. I was awake for a few moments to hear him. It wasn’t until I happened on the device of using the teacher’s voice, to take me a few steps distant, that I found that story. At the time, I was also taking a course in Lit Crit at the University of Minnesota which turned the story into vague references to Eliot. It turned into something I could never have dreamed of. Abstract? Yes. And it went someplace for me, that I could never have conceived of, yet it got under the carpet of something I had buried for those long years. “What is love?” Perhaps? I don’t know.

    Does the reader who now might read it understand my stuff with it? I doubt it. But perhaps a reader might see enough of something their own to own some piece of it?

    I seek kindred spirits, I think. And in that search, I find them once in a while. Like here, on the ‘flock.

20. Sheila Ryan on November 30th, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    Rick, the evolution of a piece of writing or music– or of a body of photographs or of a painting — can draw upon so many ‘influences’, can’t it?

    When it works, it’s like a meeting of kindred spirits.

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