Sunday, October 28, 2007
Something More Than Reality
As an art student, for a few summers in New York, I would go up to Woodstock, which had been an artist's colony long before Woodstock. My stays there were only shortly before Woodstock achieved its greater fame. I would study at the Art Student's League; we would go out as a class to paint landscapes — I was the assistant, which saved tuition. It was pretty amazing when I think back on it — there was even more of a need to save money than that…
In exchange for rent, I worked on the property of Yasuo Kuniyoshi's widow. I lived with a fellow artist in Kuniyoshi's studio; a city kid, I was ignorant of the skills of the groundskeeper, but my friend Bill From Iowa, a fine person, showed me what to do and I did my best. Kuniyoshi's second wife, as I remember, was a photographer for MoMA.
Kuniyoshi is pretty well forgotten now — even when I moved in I didn't know much about his work, nor, for whatever reason, did I pursue further knowledge later. But as a thank you for the use of his studio in the magical woods, where at night raccoons loudly scattered the garbage outside as we sat painting inside, here are some words of Yasuo Kuniyoshi:
Throughout these many years of painting I have practiced starting my work from reality stating the facts before me. Then I paint without the object for a certain length of time, combing reality and imagination.
I have often obtained in painting directly from the object that which appears to be real results at the very first shot, but when that does happen, I purposely destroy what I have accomplished and re-do it over and over again. In other words that which comes easily I distrust. When I have condensed and simplified sufficiently I know then that I have something more than reality.