Chord: A straight line that connects the two ends of an arc
What an inspiring obituary of Frank Auerbach, the great British painter! (NYT LInk is at the bottom of this post.) His art invites powerful perceptions, but the patience of his life also animates strong feelings in me this morning as I keep rewriting the latest play and consider other projects.
This paragraph moved me:
Unable to earn a living solely through his paintings until the late 1960s, he taught, worked at a frame maker, took a job at the Kossoff family bakery in East London and at one point sold ice cream on Wimbledon Common.
Auerbach believed not only in his ability to create something worthwhile but the necessity of his doing so. And even though initial circumstances didn’t favor such a pursuit, he persisted until that effort changed the circumstances. Persistence is critical to achieving your goals. is patience an alloy or persistence or an essential ingredient perhaps even its ‘fundamental nature or essence’?
The title of this blog and Substack is ‘Testing: A Personal History’. One way of looking at life — and before people freak out I am stating plainly that it is only ONE way of looking at life –is that our existence is either a series of tests or just one long test. Remember, I don’t consider a test to be inherently a bad thing.
Consider this definition of a test: “a procedure intended to establish the quality, performance, or reliability of something, especially before it is taken into widespread use.”
We are testing ourselves all the time as to whether we can do something, whether it is going to work out, whether its output is sustainable. That’s what Frank Auerbach did. He was testing his ability to keep up what mattered to him most, his daily painting, despite circumstances that might have thwarted another artist. Obviously, he passed with flying colors as they say.
Frank Auerbach, a Celebrated and Tireless Painter, Dies at 93
Requiem in pace, Frank.
