#deconstructingreality

[wanderingartshaman]

35- “Read the Fine Print” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - pastel, ink, gesso, sock, graphite, charcoal, and paper towel on paper, and binder clips, wire, nails, and spiral notebook spiral on wood frame - 24"x18" or 34"x23"x6" with frame - December 2019 - available Don’t stop. Don’t give up on something, just because it looks like trash or a failure or doesn’t fit. Don’t give up on yourself just because you feel discarded and out of place. Maybe put it down for a while and see what happens with it later. It has actually been really difficult to put a date on these recent works. I realize now that this was actually the first one where I developed a frame that was more deconstructed, but I “finished” “Read the Fine Print” after I had “finished” “Ink Patterns”. But this one started many years before, during my Herron years, and I put it aside for a long time, only to come back to it later. And it all only made any sense even after that, when I started thinking more about deconstructing the frames and reattaching them in new ways. The point is, we need decomposers as much as composers. Vultures actually provide an important role. The things we think are dead or obsolete probably aren’t really, although we might feel sad about how it seemed to turn out the first time around. I’m feeling pretty low right now, so I need to remember all this kind of thing. I generally feel obsolete and discarded and can’t see when or how that is gonna change. But then, I also remember (I need to remember) that I never liked this piece too much the first time around. And now I love it.

[wanderingartshaman]

10- “Construct” (detail) - Found wood, steel, steel cable, homemade fasteners, concrete blocks (not pictured) - Feb 2015 (some pieces available) I am fairly critical of this piece, looking back. I am humbled by it. At this point, I was kind of full of myself, trying to do too much at once. I had all of these heady ideas about what it all meant. It was this hanging installation that took up the whole student gallery! I definitely had fun, putting it together, installing it, figuring out where to hang cables, making my own fasteners. So it was a good process, even if not the best product. I present this, even now, because I do love some of the details in it. I like the contrast between materials and surfaces and textures. I also appreciate that this piece represents my current idea of “Deconstructing Reality.” We try to build our own realities, our own sense of self-importance. But in doing so, so much of what we do just reveals our own insecurities. The more we build up, the more we reveal our cracks. White fragility is like that. The more we defend and say, “Hey! I’m not racist!” The more we seem to show off how truly racist we are. I’ve become more aware, lately, about how obvious some things are. We can have an all-white or mostly white school in a diverse community, and we can still try to claim that we aren’t racist. Which is ridiculous. We can move out to the upper class, mostly-white suburbs, in order to “get away from the bad part of town” and still claim that we aren’t racist. Which is ridiculous. That’s where this current project of mine, “Deconstructing Reality,” feels really important to me. It isn’t actually deconstructing anything: it’s recognizing what is already happening, and admitting that we are somewhat out of control.

[wanderingartshaman]

6- “Art Studio Deconstruction” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - multi media on paper - 48”x36” - June 2014 - (available) It is so very freeing for me to let go of my perfectionist self, and to wade into the true mess of existence. THAT is an encounter with the divine, the universe, True Love (or whatever you like to call it). This early piece, in particular, blew my mind. This was the first time where I could just follow the process, use all the materials and media in my toolbox, and just “go at it.” Masking tape, ink, charcoal, gesso, conte crayons, layering, adding, erasing. It is one of my favorite early works, and I find myself, of course, coming back to this style of process these days. When I am thinking about this project that I call “Deconstructing Reality,” I suppose that what I consider to be “reality” is the “rules,” the separation that I hold for myself. I tend toward this careful compartmentalizing, saying what things ‘shouldn’t mix.’ I am so often inspired by my gender queer friends who see beyond separate categories better than I can. God Themselves is gender queer, in fact. So to get out all the tools, to open ourselves to new ways of thinking about drawing and painting and making work, it is to dive into the bigger reality, the divine reality. I am inspired by my own work to let go of the things that ‘should be’ and instead to follow the creative source at the center of all things.

[wanderingartshaman]

43- “Stick a Pin in It” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - gesso, charcoal, masking tape, pastel, acrylic paint, ink, and push pins on panel - 12”x10” - March 2021 - (available) What does it all mean? While I tend to like to think about what things mean or how they fit together, these days, all of that has been blown apart. Social media has helped do that for us: we scroll rather than digest. We are confined to digital presence more than sitting on the porch, talking to someone. This is the last one I have ready to show, for the moment. This “renewed body of work” I am calling “Deconstructing Reality.” Part of this project has been about, not so much a set of rules, but about a way of working, a way of pushing past the rules I set for myself. In this instance, I took a work that I had done in the past, and I kept going. I deconstructed it some more, added to it, took some things away. Allowed it to ripen. Much like myself, and my own sense of self. When I first thought of the title for this, “Stick a Pin in It,” I guess I was really thinking about “Stick a Fork in It,” meaning “it’s all done.” Whereas apparently “Stick a Pin in It” means “let’s come back to it later.” So interestingly enough, the true meaning actually makes more sense to my process. We can sleep on it and come back later. We can keep working at it. We are not really done here. With all the disappointments and sadness and frustrations of this time, I think we need to “Stick a Pin in It.” Let’s trust that even when everything seems to fall apart, we can come back to it. Later.

[wanderingartshaman]

31- “Cheesegrater Universe” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on canvas - 29”x37” - April 2016 - (available for purchase) The universe in your teacup. Or, in this case, your cheesegrater. This was taking so many of the things I had learned from the cheesegrater, and putting them together into a larger scale painting. So on the one hand, it belongs nicely in my previous body of work, with a focus on the object and the symbolism. And on the other hand, it is also about allowing the color, itself, to take on new forms, paint for the sake of paint, “reality” broken down as much as built up or constructed. I see, in this piece, several constellations of material, areas of color and texture. I don’t know much about what else to say about this piece. But maybe there is a time for silence, a time where the piece can simply speak for itself.

[wanderingartshaman]

28- “Cheesegrater Garden” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on panel - 10"x12" - April 2016 - (available) At a certain point, I turned back toward the cheesegrater for inspiration. I often seem to turn back to that rusty old cheesegrater for inspiration. But of course, this one doesn’t look much like the cheesegrater or even the surface. Here’s where my process becomes more important than the end product. Here’s where I am most fruitful, cut free, even from my own rules about what I “need” to make. Can I deconstruct my own construct of reality? Or maybe rather, can I let True Reality deconstruct me? I feel that in this body of work, the most important aspect is to let my artistic self roam free, to trust the process of growth. In the past, I was trying very hard to keep to a certain cohesive subject matter, and perhaps there is a place and time for that. But in this “new” discovery, this “new” body of work, I feel it important to let go of the subject matter, to rather enjoy the process and the materials. In this painting, you can see where the process of painting becomes part of the work (the turpentine drips versus the painted-on spots), and where color, itself is a “subject matter”. In this process of life, what will emerge? We are confined and scared and disappointed when we are tied to some future that is clearly beyond our control. But life has not given up on us yet, even if we have lost so many people and so much. Not exactly or entirely. In this process of life, what will emerge?

[wanderingartshaman]

22- "The Wizard (I)” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - charcoal on paper - 11"x15" - Feb 2016 - (available) Is there magic in the world around us? This drawing began one of my favorite series: “The Wizard.” This drawing is where it all began. It started with this abstracted, line-drawing reference to still-life objects. But this composition has taken on a life of its own, something I call, “The Wizard.” Many of my paintings and drawings take on this “subject matter,” whatever it is. It’s even hard for me to say whether it is an object or a landscape or what. In this drawing, you can still see the outline of a toaster. But in most of the works that follow, there are no identifiable aspects like that. For me, this drawing is about the movement of shapes and lines around the composition, even though it still also holds a type of structure. Reality, the reality we see, the reality as it is given to us, is only a jumping off point. There is a greater magical world, all around us, inside or beyond the things we encounter everyday. Sometimes I call that “God.” But sometimes using that term is too loaded with rules that we think we know or that have been given to us. Like we might think about God as a person or even as male. It is clear to me that “God” is gender non-binary: personal, but beyond our normal constructs. There is magic all around us. Not magic in the type that we might manipulate or control, but a deeper mystery, a complicated be-ing-ness swirling around us. I think “The Wizard” starts to get at that.

[wanderingartshaman]

15- “Deconstructing Reality” - by artist Stephen Yarbrough - oil on canvas - 38"x52" - Nov 2015 I put this one up at the beginning of this series of posts, back on May 4th. I have this piece in my kitchen, and I really enjoy it. I wander through it all the time. This painting to me is the quintessential “deconstruction of reality,” the place where I started looking at some mundane scene that I liked and, in the end, I fell more in love with the color, itself and the material of the paint itself, and less with the details as they were originally presented. And over time, I’ve learned to do that differently. How do we love “what is” instead of trying to control what it “should be?” (Who gave us these rules, anyway?). The real question is: are we hurting anybody, or are we caring for and loving other people? And now it’s Pride month, and I see all kinds of friends posting about coming out to their various identities and sexualities. And I want to say Thank You to all of you. Thank you so very much for speaking your truth. It helps make me (straight cis-gendered male that I happen to be) a better human being. And I struggle over the pronouns sometimes, trying to learn them, or I might forget to call you by your preferred name, since I learned the other one before. And things like that. But thank you each so very much for all the ways you come out to me whenever you do, for telling more of your truth. You all who have been coming out have been deconstructing reality far before I have, maybe because you’ve had to, and I really do appreciate it. And it’s sad to me because other friends don’t see it that way, and some of them are still so deeply closeted they can’t see it that way. Here’s hoping we all come out someday and see the true reality, whatever that is.