a slipping glimpse

Today I wanted to revive this post from nine years ago, and to remember Jo, who offered me these words in the first place.

Baltic landscape, acrylic on paper, Lynne Cameron

Abstract painter Willem de Kooning, talking about his practice:

Each new glimpse is determined by many,

Many glimpses before.

It's this glimpse which inspires you -- like an occurrence.

And I notice those are always my moment of having an idea

That maybe I could start a painting.

....

Y'know the real world, this so-called the real world,

Is just something you put up with, like everybody else.

I'm in my element when I am a little bit out of this world:

then I'm in the real world -- I'm on the beam.

Because when I'm falling, I'm doing all right;

When I'm slipping, I say, hey, this is interesting!

It's when I'm standing upright that bothers me:

I'm not doing so good; I'm stiff.

As a matter of fact, I'm really slipping, most of the time,

into that glimpse. I'm like a slipping glimpser.

 

(Sketchbook 1: Three Americans, 1960)