Artist Story: Michelle Grabner

"How do you manage between being an artist, mother, and teacher? How do you maintain a balanced perspective?

With absolute conviction I believe and practice Ad Reinhardt's thesis put forth in Extreme Routine. 'One paints when there is nothing else to do' he writes. For Painting to be Painting--elemental visual vocabulary and meter unique to the language--everything else has to be 'taken care of.' It is a responsibility and privilege to work within its conditions. Painting is not painting when it props up the self or attempts to tell stories. That activity is called picturemaking. Painting is larger than pictures but not larger than its limitations which are severe and singular and sweet."

I am thinking about the sentence in bold quite a lot in my studio. The notion of believing painting has limitations is counter to much of my studio's premise--

But I am spending these days merely drawing paint across surfaces--wondering what is inherent in the act of that, trying to understand just that motion.

Movement and mark.

I've avoided picture-taking of late--trying to sort some things out in my new space without the need to record or account for here.

I do believe there are process pitfalls to be found in too many words, too many attempts at preliminary explication--making something of what really NEEDS to be nothing for a time.

Is it possible to be an opaque blogger?