tim griffin

I remember he said something like -

...When I got to Artforum I encouraged everyone to take risks

but no one would

...that seems like it is always the case.

collage  bfk rives 11x15

collage   bfk rives 11x15

Robert Wilson

The idea that there is one reality is a conspiracy to destroy Art.

Robert Anton Wilson

ink  bfk rives 11x15

collage  bfk rives 11x15

what are these things?

it seems they are becoming some sort of avatar or something

...I can almost invision 

the thing this is

or maybe used to be cause its squished now.

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

confession

I must say it makes me happier to post paintings like these that I like than 

to write about paintings I did and don't really understand.

Even if I like them it's still difficult.

I wanna like them and understand them.

Then I'm happy.

But of course I don't have any idea what any of that means

really.  I don't even know why I suppose I know these

and not others.

No idea.

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

Paul Bowles

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think

of life as an inexhaustible well.  Yet everything only happens a certain number

of times, and a very small number really.

Paul Bowles

ink collage pencil  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

basic human emotion

I'm not an abstractionist.  I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else.  I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions:  tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on.

Mark Rothko

Now I can't say that's true for me.  I am always fascinated by color and form and everything else particularly all human emotion.  But not basic...I don't think I believe in them.  -At least not isolated...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

homely work

I like painting best when it turns a little homely, turns away from the grandiose and opts for simple desire.  To really want to possess something and be willing to do anything to get it will take you pretty far. -Thomas Noskowski

collage   bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

all by himself

He is all by himself and maybe that is all right.  He seems a bit lonely though...I will take some more photographs today and get them out tomorrow.  Though concentrating on only one image brings me to liking it though...I'm discovering more colors and shapes, more interaction than I realized at first.

talking to the audience

In Mayne Reid's book Forest Exiles he opens it by speaking to his audience.  I find it very charming and it reminds me of Louis Ferdinand Celine opening his book taking to his audience.  I believe he says "Here we are alone again you and I"...

ink  rives 11x15

ink  rives 11x15

illegitimi non carborundum

I'm just making new pieces that's all...and I think that underneath it all they are trying to uncover themselves to express something new or maybe something old in a new way...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

a sad poem

a sad poem printed on sunlight.. -Blaise Cendrars

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink bfk rives 11x15

and I figure

...and I figure to put out even more, faster, paint more, faster, and make em even purdier for you...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

like no views man

I don know what I dun said or ded, but I ainta get no mor views and that be the truth, though I am putting out the same amount a work. may be that no one likes this new stuff...whaa?   I do...! And especially these two.  They are a bit intense but pretty just the same.

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

what one is doing and how to get happy

Of course one is making something, generally a painting of some type...but where one gets lost is not in the thinking or imagining a painting, not imagining what it will look like nor is there a wonder in how to do it, but the problem lies in asking oneself what does it express...that is the knotty bit -what do you want it to express?  And no sooner do you start asking that instead of just discovering it than your paintings get messed up and you start making dumb ugly things for awhile...until finally you discover something new...and you are happy again...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

here we are today

...and not dissimilar from yesterday, both beautiful and cool, the best weather the world has discovered in order to bring us joy.  How we cloth ourselves to remain warm on these days varies greatly ranging from warm winter jackets to t-shirts and shorts for running, warm hats and no hats.

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

within a moment

...with the very best ones the painting happens in a moment, and by that I mean there is no thought outside the concentration of the present, there is no awareness of time passing, no other concerns, just putting the paint on the paper...there is no concern about the colors, there is no choice, there is no idea of the form except as it is revealed...the feeling is all concentrated within the process, time itself for a few seconds or even an hour ceases to dominate and destroy...it is all peace...it is like sleeping and dreaming...all is in suspension...no more stupid thoughts, no aspiration, no hope...

ink bfk rives 11x15

ink bfk rives 11x15

idea zero

My greatest fear is that I will contradict myself.  -Robin Hobb  ...I never sweat that...I contradict myself constantly, I have no idea what I'm doing nor why I'm doing it...I just do more and -oh yeah- after I'm done I look it over with a keen appraising eye like an art critic or any of my stupid high school teachers ...examining it and deciding whether it fits my artistè d'ouerve, whether it is worthy to be included, and after I decide that point (I've hardly ever excluded any, well one this year...and I'm making it part of a new one) I toss it on the stack and go -christ I gotta sign all these? Uh yeah you do...but it seems unfair to have no artistic aspirations and idea zero not only of what to do next but of what I just did...I mean zero idea of anything...

I can't give a talk on anything especially art.  You know what pisses me off?  Well this stupid teacher I had in college for one:  He told us to take our notebooks and write in it every day "different pens and pencils whatever" of everything we were gonna read as we read it..."and at the end of the quarter, turn it in as your final exam!...well I was going along for a couple of weeks and I had read everything on the syllabus when I found a wonderful notebook from the fifties with an Indian on the cover. Perfect!  So I moved everything to the new notebook while a sat there with different pens and pencils, increased the number of scratch-outs and crossed off whole paragraphs and "re-wrote" them...and included a bunch of doodles as if I had been drawing idly while I read, I further aged the notebook so it would ring with authenticity, and added a section at the end as I "reread" one of the books, I "even" got excited and read additional books by the same authors -and at the end of the class I turned it in...my girlfriend had written her whole thing on the last night and wouldn't even change her pencil!  Well goddammit, she got an A++ and I got an A-- and a note! that said Doug you you could be really brilliant if you just put a little more effort into your work...!

She was delighted and laughed and laughed (lovingly).  I was irritated.  Still am! ...and I had even found a bookmark from the early fifties which I put in the notebook which would "fall out" when it was opened...

ink  bfk rives 11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

abibliophobia

abibliophobia:  the fear of running out of things to read   -Though I must say, that seems to happen to me only when I am in a bookstore, a crummy one...but at least I used to be able to find good stickers in them...but no longer, the age of stickers is unfortunately passing.  I had a girl in one store say "but they have sticker making machines now" and I had to respond -"Well yes I have two of them, but you see then I have to pre-sort what images I will use and then produce them...it ruins my work to do that, to choose beforehand, to search and sort what I will use...."  She was very kind and responded that she went to Art School and understood perfectly the problem I faced...

ink bfk rives 11x15

ink bfk rives 11x15

ideas

You work on these ideas a lot...trying different things trying to sort them out in these mad experiments that go on endlessly...and every few weeks you sit there quietly and go...what was that idea anyway?

ink bfk rives  11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

John Muir

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness  -John Muir

 ink bfk rives  11x15

ink  bfk rives 11x15

librocubicularist

librocubicularist:  a person who reads in bed

ink  bfk rives

ink  bfk rives  11x15

like a nice worn jacket

It's nice to know that there is a kind of art that's like a nice worn jacket...it never needs help nor does it need focus...it just happens.  And for me that's collage....

collage graphite  bfk rives 11x15

collage  bfk rives 11x15