Tuesday, March 12, 2013

"What Painting Is" by James Elkins




How is it that this man (I mean the author, not Rembrandt) understands so much about the studio?  Here Elkins writes about paint as a creeping virus:  "...the paint gradually finds its way onto every surface and every possession....   Sooner or later every one of a painter's possessions will get stained.  First to go are the studio clothes and the old sneakers that get the full shower of paint every day.   Next are the painter's favorite books, the ones that have to be consulted in the studio.  Then come the better clothes, one after another as they are worn just once into the studio and end up with the inevitable stain."   P. 148, James Elkin, "What Painting Is."  Routledge, 1999.

No matter how careful I am, if I wear something nice in the studio, it gets paint on it.