All winter I’ve been working on a series of paintings with the working title “The Art Disagreeableness”. It’s (unpleasantly?) personal. It’s an ongoing project with the goal of transgressing my own proneness to making nice …, my inclination to believe my task in life is to please the world around me.
Yesterday I sensed a … shift? – and so I decided to do a little studio documentation of where I was
The “The Art Disagreeableness” project (almost 30 paintings in progress – and still growing) is heavily informed by my reading of James Hollis & Thomas Moore.
“We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.”
― James Hollis, What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life
These paintings are not made for any exhibition, they are a research project – thinking of them as merchandise will destroy the purpose.
This is what happened to Disagreeable no. 8, still not finished, but definitely transformed
sub rosa 
“. . . we are here to become more and more ourselves.” Yes, indeed. I think of this often. I enjoyed the transformations of your painting (as it became more itself?).
Exciting, the transformative process!
That quote is great advice and I really admire what you’re doing with this project.
No wonder Rick Rubin speaks to me … “There doesn’t need to be a purpose guiding what we choose to make. When examined more closely, we might find this grandiose idea useless. It implies we know more than we can know.”
😅❤️
Nice! I saved the book on a website shopping list. In general, I don’t enjoy books that give advice about how to live or be creative but this one looks different.
“A poem can convey information that can’t be transmitted through prose or conversation.
And all art is poetry.”