The Birthday 60 x 72″ acrylic on canvas

I talk about the unselfconscious mark a lot. It is something all artists strive for, even realists. The idea of removing ego from the creative process is a tantalizing for many. To make a mark that has no guile, no agenda, no desire to please is the goal certainly of the abstract expressionist. Jackson Pollock’s famous quote —“I am nature”—was an effort to explain how he understood his relationship to art, the self, and the act of creation. His goal was to become himself a force of nature, to sidestep the human ego. His drip art was the solution that removed the hand, the mannerliness aspects to his painting. Andy Worhal took it one step further, removing himself almost completely from the execution of his work. And of course, there is Picasso’s famous quote “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” These are all expressions of a desire, shared by many artists, to remove themselves, their ego, from the act of creation altogether.

To paint is to play the role of God. The goal is to bracket the ego and still be intentional, to be or not to be, to live in that place between being and nonbeing, where we can be our most authentic ego-less self. It is a conundrum because it seems impossible to be fully me and not myself at the same time. What we are talking about is having control over the element of chance. It’s an endless Rabbit hole, a dance the artist plays with herself, like buying a million lottery tickets in the hopes of hitting the million-dollar jackpot. To make marks that are both random and intentional.

Even as an expressive realist, I try to not observe my hand as a draw or paint. This may seem counterintuitive to those who admire the skill that undergirds my work. The blind contour is a fundamental process of not watching yourself draw. To be completely aware and unaware simultaneously, present and absent. The idea is to connect directly from the observation to the canvas, bypassing the ego, which is always assessing and judging, thus hampering the creative process. These unobserved marks have a certain purity that our more refined, carefully constructed marks will never have.

My Collaboration with Nick Cerrato

The Great Dilemma 30 x 28″ mixed media

Needless to say, the effort to remove the ego is an ongoing struggle for many artists. This is as it should be. Ego is a terrible thing to observe in a work of art. I think I have stumbled upon the solution. I refer now to my current collaboration with artist Nick Cerrato, who has Cerebral Palsy. His condition makes direct, intentional and careful mark making impossible. There is no way to control the impulses running to his hands and feet. As challenging as this is for normal living, it provides an amazing opportunity for his work as an artist. He is literally only capable of making the unselfconscious mark, that long sought after, immutable artistic ideal of being and nonbeing.

Jesus Weeps 24 x 36″ mixed media on canvas

Nick has collaborated with several artists in his struggle to tell certain stories he wants to tell. His desire is to combine his convulsive mark making with those of more skill centered artists. He has ideas in his head but cannot translate them into recognizable form. He and I have been having a go at this delicate balancing act, as of late. To be honest, I don’t see his condition as a hinderance, in any way; I see it as a huge advancement in getting closer to achieving that unselfconscious mark. So, my goal with our working process is to celebrate his ego-less unselfconscious mark making. I recognize and honor his genius of not being in absolute control. Nick paints with his feet; his marks are both intentional and spontaneous.

We take turns directing the paintings we make together, in terms of theme and composition and color scheme, etc. The key is that we have a synergy with similar goals of creating paintings that evoke a story, that deal with existence, our spiritual dilemma. So, we are combining elements of pure abstraction with recognizable signposts of realistic imagery. I value so highly his brilliant mark making that I try not to negate them in any way in our work. I enhance, sometime by delineation, the beauty I see in his marks. And sometimes I just leave well enough alone. My job is to add information that supports the theme. I do this by making slight alterations that direct the eye by tickling out the forms that form pathways and depth for the eye to travel. There is no need to “correct” any “error” in draftsmanship. I find things in his marks that bend to the story within the paint. For me, the obstacle is the goal. We have an agreement that what he intends is not as important as what actually happens in the paint, as part of his unique process of mark making. In a current painting his pillars turned into robed Angels. That is the mystery of our art, that all important element that is sometimes missing in our individual work. So far, the results are off the charts exciting. In my mind, what we are doing transcends anything we could do on our own. It is a pure symbiosis. We need each other to achieve the natural combination of a powerful expressiveness and detailed pictural storytelling.