14 questions for eve

Here's the statement that will accompany the online preview of the 14 questions for Eve show coming up in only a few weeks. I'm photoing the final versions of the paintings and tying up loose ends, and hoping to get the preview up within the next few days so I can hand out postcards with a clear conscience (since the postcards promise an online preview). anyway, having neglected this blog for the past more-than-a-week, I figured I'd put it here in the meantime, until I get it posted elsewhere.

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About the Exhibit

The offering up of a verbal explanation of these paintings, is a daunting task, and one on which I’ve procrastinated for as long as I've been able to manage. However, having encouraged quite a few friends, acquaintances, and strangers to visit this website to preview my upcoming show, I feel that it is now unavoidably the time, to write something pertinent to accompany this online version of the exhibit.

I always feel a bit uncomfortable writing or talking about my paintings. It’s not that I feel it’s wrong, or even unnecessary, or superfluous. It’s just that I don’t really ever feel that it’s complete. The associations, thoughts and feelings I have regarding any individual painting, let alone an entire group of paintings, are too numerous and convoluted to convey. I'm providing the following because it’s reasonable and justifiable that some viewers will wonder why I’ve painted what I’ve painted, and what this group of work means to me. I doubt this will fully satisfy any of us, but nevertheless, I’ll give it a shot.

I’ve been painting Eve for at least fifteen years, maybe longer, but the earliest instance that comes to mind is one from late summer 1990. My relationship with her goes back much further however. I’ve been intrigued by the story of Eve in the Garden with the Snake and the Apple for almost all of my life. I remember, when I was five years old, there was a family that lived across the street from mine. In that family there was a daughter, I’ll keep her real name to myself, but perhaps here, I will go ahead and call her Eve. Eve would come over, if not every afternoon, at least several times each week. I guess that my mother was babysitting her, but I don't recall the details. Eve was approximately my age, and as I recall, unmistakably female. I remember having an irresistible curiosity concerning the physical differences between girls and boys in general, and between Eve and myself in particular. I bent all my efforts towards satisfying that curiosity. To that end, I created a game that I believed was my own original invention; I called it “Doctor”. I was genuinely amazed years later, when I discovered that others had come up with similar games when they had been children. Of course, the purpose of playing Doctor, was entirely focused on giving me an excuse to closely examine my playmate’s naked body. With the interest of the game at heart, Eve for some weeks worth of sessions, acquiesced to all my overtures and requests. A day finally came however, when she announced that she had told her mother about our game, and that she had been told that she was no longer allowed to play it. I was devastated momentarily, but my mind quickly churned out a solution in the form of a new idea, I remember saying to her, “Well then, do you want to play Adam and Eve?”

I mention that story, not because it has a great deal to do with this exhibit, but because it is the earliest recollection I have, of having a familiarity with the gist of the events outlined in the first few chapters of Genesis. Also, this childhood anecdote of mine, documents the beginning of what seems to be a lifelong fascination with nudity and nakedness. Generally speaking I prefer naked people to the other kind, and when weather or room temperature allow, I prefer being naked to wearing clothes. There is something inherently honest and pure in nakedness. It always seems that naked people are more open and reliable; unencumbered by deception or pretense. And of course, perhaps because of this, naked people are sexy. The story of Eve, is much more than just a parable of nudity versus the wearing of clothes though. It is a wonderfully complex story, open to myriad interpretations and significances, many of which I’ve taken pleasure in pondering, but it would be false of me to pretend that nudity hasn’t played a significant role in attracting me to the character of Eve, because she is of course, the archetypal nude.

The Title of this group of paintings, 14 Questions for Eve, seems to demand some explanation of exactly what these questions are, or at least for the questions to become clear during the course of viewing the paintings. Early on, as this group developed, it went through a preliminary phase, during which each painting did represent a particular question. In their final state however, the paintings on there own don't really address the question of the Questions, if you see what I mean. But, in the beginning (to borrow a phrase) I did make lists of questions I thought might be worthy of Eve. I listed things I thought perhaps only the Great Mother, or First Lover, or Primeval Woman could answer satisfactorily. I listed things that I couldn’t grasp and that I suspected might require feminine insight in order to be answered satisfactorily, but my efforts seemed too bounded or confining, and too particular to my own experience to easily apply to the experiences of others. I felt that the paintings should serve me on one level, but relate to others in ways that I could not anticipate. Eve is much more than what I, or any of us as individuals, perceive her to be. Eve belongs to all of humanity; she is a primordial image and symbol, maybe even the primordial image and symbol. I did not want to dictate or limit the role she could play through these paintings, by narrowing her potential in anyway.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself; sequential organization is not my strength. Let me begin again. Despite my long fascination with Eve, I did not initially set out to focus a body of artwork on her. These paintings trace their origin to a poem and some metal shelves, so I should begin their story there. I found the shelves sometime in the Fall of 2001, Novemberish I guess. They were in the alley by the bank between California and Milwood, up by Lincoln Blvd. in Venice. I brought them home intending to paint on them, but not really having any plan, for what I would paint. They sat on my patio for quite awhile; neglected, but not forgotten.

Being busy with other things, I allowed a year to pass before I began painting on them. When I did begin, I began by fits and starts. I would paint them all one week, and then paint over everything the following week, then let them sit for a few weeks, and then paint over what I’d done. I was having fun with them, and enjoying the process, but giving no real thought to their eventual outcome. Most of the paintings were female nudes, but rather anonymous and generic studies that developed primarily out of experiments in material and method.

That carried me through until the following September or so (that’s September 2003, if you’ve lost track). About that time, I wrote a poem, and although it was inspired by one particular woman, it really held traces of at least a few others whom I’d loved. It went like this:

Tell me Eve
Why are you so sad?
Is it simply because the Summer’s gone
and the Fall begun?
Or is it, because you feel
as if you’ve lost a
friend?

Tell me Eve
What will you do tonight?
Will you find a
lover,
who is not me?
Or will you sleep alone,
as lonely as I am
without you?

It’s cold and dark right now.
I remember how we used to
talk,
never dreaming it could end.
Where is that faith tonight?
and
why am I so sad
because the Summer’s gone?

The poem had a lot of questions in it, and it felt good to ask them. I thought it might be interesting to ask some more questions, and I thought it might be worthwhile to accompany the questions with some paintings. I mistakenly believed I had fourteen metal shelves to paint on, so I decided that I’d ask fourteen questions. As it turned out, I really had fifteen shelves, and to those, I have since added an appliance lid, some burlap, and a couple pieces of plywood, but I like the number fourteen, and have stuck with it throughout.

As I mentioned above, I played around for awhile with the listing of questions. I achieved mixed results. Here’s one of the lists:

1. Tell me Eve, why are you so sad?
2. Tell me Eve, what are your fears?
3. Tell me Eve, where are you going?
4. Tell me Eve, where have you
been?
5. Tell me Eve, what are your dreams?
6. Tell me Eve, how was your
day?
7. Tell me Eve, what are you looking for?
8. Tell me Eve, what have
you found?
9. Tell me Eve, what do you see?
10. Tell me Eve, what is
love?
11. Tell me Eve, what will happen?
12. Tell me Eve, what are you
hiding from?
13. Tell me Eve, what is the answer to your riddle?
14.
Tell me Eve, whom have you become?

where will you sleep tonight? (this is an extra
question; remember, even though there were 14 questions, I had fifteen metal
shelves... it's all so complicated, you know).

I wrote some more poems too (see the Ramblings section, the Little Leather Sketchbook, and the Graphpaper Sketchbook for poems, writings and some preliminary notes and drawings), but found myself reluctant to tie things down too specifically. I also wrote some prose, had some dreams, read some source material and gave Eve a great deal of thought and consideration. Eve, for me became, among other things, the shortened version of “Everywoman” and I came to identify her specifically with the women I’ve known best and been closest to. I found myself stepping back and looking at the lovers I’ve had, and the women I’ve known, the women I’ve slept with, the women I haven’t slept with, and the ones I’ve wanted to sleep with but haven’t. I questioned love, and friendship; and I questioned sadness and joy. I stepped even further back and tried to see myself through Eve’s eyes. I tried to get to get to know the Eve within me, I tried to determine what she and the other Eves might think of the whole me… I probably wasn’t very successful with that, but I think I gave it a pretty good shot.

Throughout all this period, which lasted more than two years, I continued to paint on the metal shelves. I’d paint, and paint over, and paint over again. No result was particularly precious, and I’d paint over paintings whether I liked them or not. Sometimes, I’d document them with a photo before I painted over them, but often, I’d forget to do so (click here to see some early versions of the paintings). Some of the paintings I painted over were really pretty good, but it didn't matter really, I mostly just wanted to keep painting, and the shelves were all I had at the time, to paint on. This group of paintings has really has not been about the result all along. It’s been about the painting and the asking, rather than about the paintings and the answers.

The 14 Questions for Eve paintings are about the taking of the opportunity to ask. The questions really don’t matter and neither do the answers. The important thing is to ask (to seek, to search, to reach... to open our eyes). And of course, we really aren’t asking Eve because she only exists in our own experience of her. We ask these questions of ourselves, or perhaps of our feminine selves, but still ourselves, knowing we can at most guess at an ungraspable answer to an almost unaskable question. We often live in a state of distraction, discouragement and denial, too busy or too fearful to seek the truth. These paintings, if they are about anything, are about the importance of asking the questions and the importance of seeking the truth, even when we believe the truth is unavailable to us, or beyond our grasp.

As a post script, I want to mention three final things; one little recollection, one thought, and one comment that occur to me and seem relevant to these paintings; I’ll share them here, and then shut up.

When I was a child, my mother taught me many wonderful lessons that have since, served me well. One of the things she taught me, and that I’ve quoted for many years is this: “If you can’t handle the answer, don’t ask the question.” Well, I think that’s very good advice, but it can be misleading. It does not simply mean that we should shield ourselves from truths that don’t suit us; it means that we should strive to develop our ability to accept the truths as they come. We should aim to enhance our ability to handle the answer so that we can afford ourselves the opportunity to ask the question. Eve’s eating of the apple, is an interesting metaphorical asking of a question. According to the story, Eve’s apple was the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Prior to her eating of that tree, she could not have known the difference between good and evil, right and wrong; she was an amoral being, incapable of moral action. She could not have known whether she could “handle the answer” of eating the apple at all, she couldn’t have known that there was any answer to handle. There was no way for her contemplate the consequences of her apple eating, because there was no reason for her to consider that consequences would result.

The punishment she received for the eating of the apple seems out of all proportion to the act itself, until we consider the magnitude of the importance of the metaphorical asking of the unanswerable question, which is not a small act, but a great one. Then we can desist questioning the relative magnitude of action and result, and begin to wonder whether the consequences of the act were really a punishment or in fact, a reward, or simply the necessary result to be made the most of... an opportunity to handle, a difficult to handle truth.

Ok, that was the recollection and the thought, here is the comment: As I painted these pictures, I noticed that most often, I depicted Eve after having eaten the apple, and in the act of discarding it. I know, according to the story she doesn’t discard it, she goes off and gives some to Adam and they bicker back and forth about whose fault it was once they get caught, but that version doesn’t affect the way it shows up, when it comes out of my subconscious and presents itself in paint on metal or burlap. So, after awhile, I began to wonder about this. I forced myself, a few times, to paint her either before she’d tasted the apple, or as she held it after having tasted it. My tendency however, if left unchecked, was to paint her as she allowed it to fall to the ground after having taken a bite. Interpretation is a slippery thing, but it’s a dull world without it, so eventually I came up with the following explanation, which satisfies me (you can feel free to interpret it any way you like, but this is what I’ve come to think about it). The apple is the tangible symbolic form of her shame or guilt, for having committed an act which she came to view as wrong. In order to cast off the sadness of her Fall from Grace, she needs to also cast off the guilt and shame connected with the apple. The Fall itself was the result of the shame, rather than the apple eating. Perhaps the only thing that keeps many of us from experiencing joy, is our tenacious grip on our own personal shame. So, in the end, perhaps I did discover an answer to the question that began the poem that led to this group of paintings... funny how everything works out so neatly in the end, isn't it?

I hope you enjoy the paintings.

Fourteen Questions for Eve will be featured in the upcoming exhibit, at Terrell Moore's in LA. The opening reception will be Saturday, January 28th, 2006, 7pm to midnight. Everyone's welcome. Click here for details.