ArtSeen
Reflections on Philip Guston
Verbal Equivalents (For Philip Guston)
the breathing of and listening
to paint
the openness, sensuousness, messiness—the restlessness
paint becomes a sentient thing
divesting what we already know
with urgency, courage, freedom, directness
the eye watching the eye paint
turning fidgety anxiety to mindful and feeling action, the agitation acting upon resistance of matter:
spindly accretions of clumsy forms, brooding gestures, diffuse edges, nervous measures
of body, traces of hand
thinking out loud
the enigma, the mystery, the empty vessel of doubt
places, people and states nearly emerge from pure material, conjured by titles: traveler, actor, the room, path, alchemist, garden, winter, vessel
non-scape, greyscape, brushscrape, zigzagscape,
innerscape, sootscape
the brimming vessel of possibility
doubt itself acculumates form
arachnid meandering, muscle-memory wandering, octopoid reach
of bristling weave:
the third hand, the empathy of thought and feeling: tangibilis
in touch we feel for others, we’re all hoods
the distillation of thinking and doing, what is concealed and hidden
following the mistakes
the surface seems alive
paint disappears