“Poker Face,” soft pastel on sandpaper, 38″ x 58″

* an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on.

The creative process remains as baffling and unpredictable to me today as it did when I began my journey over forty years ago.  On the one hand, it seems entirely logical – insight building on insight; figures from my past, the culture, and everyday life sparking scenes and images on canvas; and all of it – subject, narrative, theme – working together with gesture, form, light to capture deeply felt experience.  But in real time the process is a blur, a state that precludes consciousness or any kind of rational thinking.  When I’m working well, I’m lost in the moment, painting quickly and intuitively, reacting to forms on the canvas, allowing their meaning to reveal itself to me.  In every painting I make I’m looking for some kind of revelation, something I didn’t see before.  If it surprises me, hopefully it will surprise the viewer, too.

Eric Fischl and Michael Stone in Bad Boy:  My Life On and Off the Canvas

Comments are welcome!