My writing takes place most of the time very early in the morning. I liken it to a mental conversation with myslef. I AM MY MOST ENCHANTED LISTENER!

The written segments presented here are complete and incomplete... some have hanging references which I am not going to connect to whatever the reference was (at the time I wrote the words) [I may connect them later]. What you are about to read, if you choose to do so, includes all the warts. ENJOY!!!!!

After reading through this, I realize that it is formated in CHRONOLOGICAL order; from 5/4/06 to 10/17/06.

8:09 AM 5/4/2006

I see art [all] as primarily functioning in two distinct ways; story telling and decoration. Each category, of course can be broken down into many, many sub parts. I will list a few here for definition and comarison reasons. When you start looking at specific artists and their output, this simple listing falls apart because no artist exists purely on one side or the other. Ah, such is life.

9:53 AM 11/13/2006 Sorry, I never got to the list.

10:24 AM 9/22/2006

The internet is a powerful resource for painters -all artists of all faiths- actually. I start a search on one artist and windup on an artist's site or at a gallery that is quite far away from my original search intentions. This the real excitement of the net. We go where now one (we) haven't been before (bad star trek reference).

I look at everything I run accross regardless of its style and persuasion. Here are some artsits that I have come accross lately that I find exciting. All of them have one thing in comon. THEY ARE EXPERIMENTING, trying new stuff and relationships, new views, points-of-view, reorganizing the traditional and the old, etc. Exciting.

J.T. Kirkland (http://www.jtkirkland.com/index.html) -- I especially like his paintings. All work is quite alive.

Chris Ashley (http://www.chrisashley.net/weblog/archives/week_2006_05_07.html#001405) -- Chris presents all things digital and digitally related.... large site.... lots of stuff and some great links to artists doing some top notch stuff.

Seeing some of Chris's digital images deflates my interest in persuing geometry purities in my painting... When I start outlining new ideas on my computer using purist geometry, I get a very strong deja vu feeling regarding the image. Haven't quite got my mind around this yet. Will keep truckin' to see where it leads.

Thinking About Art (http://thinkingaboutart.blogs.com/art/2006/05/artists_intervi_2.html) -- Part of an artist's interview project... relates to how artists think and relate to the world.

[this list is endless.... addional favorites to be continued]

dpn 10:42 AM 9/22/2006

12:07 PM 9/22/2006

Regarding making abstract paintings.... during my internet travels, I have noticed that there are many artists who use the same MOVES to make their abstractions. To me, this creates a connection to a commonness in abstract painting making. This could, in a sense, exists in similar fashion as Carl Jung's "collective uncounsciousness". Soon I will layout some images (at random) to illustrate (not prove) my assertian. I think this concept to be a truth because I don't think that a lot of these youngish painters are really aware of each other's work, ideology, philosophy, methodology... However, their statements differ quite wildly in attempts to explain in words what they are doing or think they are doing. Most all of the statements fail for me. Words are'nt agood medium to explain a non-verbal absract image as found in a purist abstract painting. We make paintings and not literature. One caveat.... the image structuring could be coming out of the academic art train they get at some schools... can't prove this. Sounds good. Does this mean that the new abstract painting as i am illustrating it here, are academic or belong to an academy (using the standard definition of the term/world "academy" along with acceptable standard paradigms. Hmmmmm????? Fruit for some additonal thought and research.

9:46 AM 9/28/2006

I am surfing the net again today.... looking for artists that interest me... painters mostly. i go to a gallery, then google the painters that interest me. time after time I go to the various sies to look at the work, and my response seems tobe the same today.... NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. The images seem to me to be "been there done that".

Let me explain a little. Over the years I have done a lot of experimenting with different styles and approaches to painting running the gammut from photo realism to totally empty (almost) minimal things. I don't see too many painters that are doing something unique to themselves. I am seeing, today, too much derivitave stuff. Maybe this is the negative influence of the Madison avenue corporate ad spin influencing the arts now. "Let us canvas the potential condumer on what they would buy as art" seems to be the followed gallery business model. Artists are guilty to of being only interested in the $$$$$$$$$$$. They make (or find) a product that fits this description. When this scheme is used, it doesn't take long to discover that the prospective buyer is clueless as to what constitutes serious art. They have no tools to evaluate what is out there today. They are the products of an artless education. And the gallery system is doing nothing to fill in the education void. The only criteria galleries use these days is $$$$$$$$$$$$$.

This delema is sad at two levels. 1) sad because economics indeed drives the commerce of selling art. No deep pockets, and there is no margin within which to operate. The gallery goes bust. 2) And now there isn't an educated buying potential... so the gallery can't show anything that is cutting edge and get something going that is "new". Thus, this becomes a vicious circular event. No sales, no inventive art = stale scene and stale images. Showing the cutting edge now requires draconian ad techniques... the blockbuster shocker type exposure... this will bring in the curious and the daring money holder that sets a spark by buying a piece. then the hype starts. This is risky. It works sometimes.

Artists are frustrated. I give the young some credit. They realize the dryness/oldness/staleness of the past structures in painting (especially the abstracts) and are moving into new territories these days. And the computer is playing a large roll; at times a large trap. That being said, there are attempts to start someting. And there are new venues opening up to show it. And there are some sales. But not enuff. Here in the Charlotte, NC area, there are galleries closing all over the place. No support. And artist colleagues from all over the USA are telling me that the same thing is happening in their areas too. SAD.

1:58 AM 10/17/2006

New work

About to make some changes in my modus oporendi. I love the geometry painting, the more purist approach stuff, but the process drives me nuts. The process is preparation and time intensive. By the time I get to the actual painting the image developement is done. The only thing that remains to be solved is the actual color and application choices. Sometimes the design will go through a small change. Also the process is painfuly slow for me. I have always enjoyed a faster paced kind of painting.

I experienced this same agony while working on the figure paintings in the early 1970s. The stenciling process took the excitement out of the painting process for me. And it happened again in 1995-1997 when I tried to get the geo-computer painting off the ground the first time.

What happens... I simply loose interest in painting. As the process bogs me down, I don't feel like painting. In the end I stop the process and move on.

The present geo abstractions began in late 2003 and got going full blown during the spring of 2004. The initial approach was not "purist". There was a "healthy" mix of geo flat painting and free brush painting. I played-off each other flat color space and modulated color space; line and shape, brush and roller applications, hard edge and modulated edge. When I joined the Modern Eye Gallery in Charlotte NC, I decided to push the geo purist approach to see where it would go. This approach was also supported by Ron Crider, ModEye director. In a sense, there was a purpose and need to go further into this methodology. He kept me towing the line. This was good for me. It was a disclipline I needed to explore and develop the work more and more toward the minimal. It worked.

Now that there is a break in the program, so to speak, I want to step backward and pick up some ideas that I was developing in the mid 1990s... still lare shape and minimal in scope, but going back to more use of automatism and less fully developed computer involvement. I want to return to using the computer as an aid to image development and not as THE tool for image development.

Thre were some ideas that I simply touched but didn't develop...

"Cerulean Dream" completed early January 2003. Painting on canvas stopped after #3 above was started. Studio time then devoted to a series of papers. Focus: Devalue quick gesture to slow process, develop ideas, move on. Work on canvas resumed in mid March 2003. Large Yellow, 2003 (3K); Untitled Two, 2003 (6K); Gold Box on a Red Line, 2003 (5K); SideWinder, 2003 (9K).

Left: Digital, 1995, (Largedigitalptg)-- Right: Canvas (Largedigitalpainting, 2002, ac, 61x56" I especially want to revisit this painting -- I felt very good making it and it still feels correct as i look at it now. 1) Umbra, 1998, Acrylic/Canvas, 53"h x 56"w". This paintig needs to be retrieved from the roll storage and restretched and studied... This was a correct track to take... but I didn't know it at the time. This image also needs to be placed in the 1995-1997digcanv page.

I also need to revisit 2003 paintings on paper. I started something here and it never got off the ground. Something about the approach at the time stopped me from developing the process and image... several paintings on canvas did get started, but I got scared and stopped. ==>

Many of the paintings on this page canvas2002-2003 were short circuited... need to revisit and upgrade. ****

**** I think that my interests in trying to use the computer to solve ALL the painting issues along with my interest in trying the purist geo program, plus my engagement with ModEyeGallery stopped this approach to early. Need to revisit this too. At the time, 2002 and 2003, I had such a strong feel of deja vu and "been there done that", that I got blinded by what was really going on and paniced. Had to move on to get rid of the anxiety. [this is by-product of working alone too much. There is no outside feed back. All my feedback came from within my own head. I got lost].

file:///D:/www_davidnovak_com/canvasupdate/1987-91-thumbs-statement.htm <=== All of the imaging done during this period both on paper and canvas need to be revisited. I need to renew here; technique especially. This idea needs updating and now is the time to get started.

So, the last few months of 2006 and into early 2007 is backup-and-rekindle time. I have some new computerized images derived from polyethylene palette digital pics; a kind of bastardized James Brooks solutions. I want to try this as it seems strong within me at the moment. Then will move on to where my mind and automatism takes me.

I would really like to find a mix of all the ideas that I have tried and worked with over the past 40 years. I would like to have a moment of profound "AHA"! I want to see that "LIGHT"! I want to feel that "LIGHT"! There have been glimpses over the years; the most profound were The Voyage Series in 1966-67; The Vermont RED-Xs of 1975-78; the abstract seascapes of 1979-87; and the newGeo abstracts from 1989-1995. As far as I can tel through hindsight, the computer got in the way starting in 1995 --really messed things up in 1997 [the early purist computer stuff was great... the images developed on the computer and stayed as digital images. The image goes awry when I try to translate it into painting on canvas. When this happens, the image goes stale for me. The process slows down too much. My work is at its worse when the rhthym is too slow.. it gets procrastinated. When the rhthym is faster, almost frantic, I do my best work. The ME gets connected to the painting.

2:47 AM 10/17/2006 I have spent the past couple of days going through my painting inventory of the past 10 years. As I unwrap a painting, I know whether the ideas containaed in it are complete and need not be reopened and when the ideas need to be updated. It has been a fun exercise. Some of the older work is as strong as when i first did it. some of it feels very strong to me as my memory of it was faulty. Visual memory is terrible at best.

I have enuff new cloths primed and ready to to. It is not time to start my engine and get all of the back on the track again. Bad pun... just had a big race over the week-end here in Charlotte.

2:52 AM 10/17/2006 dpn

2:21 AM 9/29/2006

Just got an email from Ron Crider, director mod eye gallery... he is shutting down the 4 painters x 4 perspectives show early... by 2 weeks. This is very disappointing to me as a painter... to experience (again) another gallery closing. I feel almost guilty, in a sense, that nobody wants to purchase my work. BUT. Ron has been somewhat disallusioned with the Charlotte Art scene for several months now... as it seems, nobody is buying abstract art in Charlotte these days. This is indeed an indightment against Charlotte as a City in that its politic and money does not support the arts. It is all about football, baseball, hockey and nascar here. This is where the politics support is and this seems to be where our corporate leadership is. How Sad! I am not blaming Ron. He has done his best to promote abstract art in this area. The art community here just doesn't get it or want it. I am not sure where the reality exists here. How sad!

So now, 9/29/2006, 3 or 4 major galleries have closed and gone. The galleries that are now left in Charlotte don't show cutting edge visual art now. It is all very conservative, provincial, trite and safe. This is what Charlotte has come to be once again. How Sad!

I like this area as a place to live. But I have to rethink my future here. I am finding it increasingly more difficult to live in an area that does not support my work as a painter and visual art generally. And refuses to show my work at any of its local venues. Back in 1995 a local member of the Charlotte Art Mafia told me to my face that my work would never be shown in Charlotte. He was almost correct. It has been shown here, just not purchased and/or collected here. One-half the battle has been won. Now this half of the battle is closing out. How Sad!