A rose is a rose is a rose

(Pierre Bonnard, Le Boxeur, autoportrait, 1931)

I’m always trying to show myself in the best light possible. I really hate this about myself right now.

As I’ve been seeing it, my drawings are a reflection of me, they are my image. My image can be diverse, but I ultimately approve of the multi-facets. That is, if I’m going to show fragility, it’s in a way that I think is ok. If it doesn’t pass my inner test, I keep working. That’s why looking at older work can be difficult for me: because I no longer approve of the moi it presents.

What would really be brave is to show myself in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable, unprotected. I don’t think I can actually try to do this. It’s probably more of a matter of stopping before I begin polishing, before I begin resolving and judging.

That said, the drawing has to be solid in formal terms – the endeavor, the attempt that I wrote about in my last post still has to be in play. This is important because in the end, viewers don’t care – and shouldn’t – about my emotional state and struggles. What counts is the thing in front of their eyes. What if stopping short added something visually?

And then there’s no controlling what’s going to happen to the thing, how it will be seen. The thing is on its own.