What is a line? - an edited extract from my painting diary
06/01/05
… what is a line? A simple stroke has its physical beginning, middle and end. A wavy stroke may fade and rejuvenate several times. Each part of the line needs to be balanced and related to the rest of itself. The line also consists of its relation to its neighbors… other lines feeding into and out of it, bordering it, hugging it and guiding it on either side. This relationship needs to work with the viewer's eye moving in all directions… along the line, across it and 3D dimensionally as the line pops in and out and becomes part of an object. The line is part of the whole, so it contributes to more than just immediate neighbors… the neighborhood is large, the spheres of influence larger still.
Creating the line there is the brush speed, angle, pressure, flow (with or against the bristles), ink flow and paper surface - absorbing the shiny black liquid ink which sometimes leaks into the paper's fibers.
There is a white line bunched up against the black line on either side and flowing into the beginning and end. Its created by the black line's thickness and blackness… its weight and a whiteness linked in space to the neighborhood.
This is the line in three dimensions.
Now comes the forth dimension… time; my timing in creating and the viewer's timing in experiencing. My timing is physical and conscious… physically how fast I move which dictates line's blackness, and consciously… am I really in the here-and-now, concentrating on the line, or am I drifting in a different time, past memories, future imagining or day dreaming. Quality is the here-and-now.
The viewer has long-term and short-term timing. Short-term is how their eye moves across the page, which lines guide their eye to where. The viewer's long-term timing occurs as they enter the picture loaded with memories, hopes and wishes which are influenced and called up by each line, neighborhood and the entire picture calling them out of the here-and-now into their own imagination and emotion. Viewers see lots of things I never paint! The line has a physiological beginning, middle, rejuvenation and end.
The whole process is so complex it cannot be created consciously in a planned way. It must come from the sub-conscious, allowing holistic brush control, mind, body and most importantly soul… where ever that is.
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