Eric Huckabee

Some compiled notes from the past year.

A note on waves.

Waves are only themselves, but are affected by the conditions of everything around it.

A single wave is no different than an entire body of waves. A single crest can not be distinguished or removed from multiple crests across a body of water. It is only a difference of focus.

*Edit - This relates to Dad’s ideas about time, interestingly. Can a single “slice” or “cell (like a film strip)” of time be taken out of progression without affecting the surrounding events/situation?

Waves regenerate; push, fold and pull back into themselves.

Waves are a tangibly visible transfer of energy in real time. We can visually and physically track this energy, its causes and a/effects.

BOAT
NET
WAVE
WATER

Wave is a visually directional word:

W(est) A V E(ast)

(Point of “A” is North, point of “V” is South)

Painting is a means of thinking visually in real time. Or, giving tangible form to suspended information that is found through seeing “Thinking” and feeling “Seeing.” Often, my images develop out of a fascination with the formal properties of specific information -- say buoyancy; The shape of a hull in water, its negative being the shape of a wave, affected by weather and the perception of space. My paintings are frequently afterthoughts of previous investigations, showing how variables can be endlessly depicted in service of creating new fictions.

*I am interested in the idea of “Thinking” and “Seeing” as things in themselves; that is, as occupying a physical reality all their own. How does one see “thinking?” The active state of thinking becoming a visual, physical reality, and how does it feel to see this? In reflecting back to working on particular paintings, I find that I usually come to find specific information that allows me to investigate and hang upon these ideas. Of course, all these “ideas” tend to fall away when actually working, and are in service of the new fiction taking shape.

Painting as accumulated information.

Since being in Waveland, I have had the realization that I am constructing/finding paintings consisting of information in real-time, as opposed to relying simply on memory/stored information. Or, the stored information gives structure to the use of new information.

Why now in Waveland, and not in Philadelphia? Not sure, maybe it is just a coincidence in timing, maturing as a painter (edit: Originally typed “maturing as a painting,” only caught the typo after rereading hours after writing it. Interesting view, see myself that way?) Maybe difference in emotional connection to place allows more freedom in thinking. Being confronted with information that I know directly forces a more open-ended thinking to avoid simply making a response or translation of immediate surroundings and states, though of course, that does have an effect, probably as a trigger or filter.

* Stephen Hawking article about information in black holes. Information held at outer rim is translated from 3D to 2D, hologram storing information; Not destroyed, but transferred. Does our mind/memory do the same?

I think I am painting both the direct information, as well as moments that cause or lead to direct information. Or, both the “thing” and the edge that causes the “thing.”

Additionally, this existing information is used to create new fictions. Or more precisely, new realities. I want a painting to exist as its own reality. What the painting becomes can only exist in its own parameters.

A few comments on working properties.

I work daily. Draw constantly, not thinking much about it. Of course, not thinking much about it is when the most intense and curious thinking is happening. I joke with Amanda that I very often come up with the best solutions to issues I am working through, or new ideas to investigate, when I am either in the shower or on the toilet.

I can not stand extraneous “mess.” I try to be as direct as possible with what I put down, or take away for that matter. I try to be as exact as possible, and whatever impulse I have to put down or bring out some mark/particular information/whatever it is into a painting, I want to absolutely believe that what I see is completely necessary. I find that if I can say something in three moves instead of five, I will try to do so. I want my images to suggest rather than lecture. Because of this, my paintings tend to develop rather slowly compared to my drawing. But that is probably just as much me trying to be patient and considerate of what the images want, out of sheer curiosity.

I really believe that paintings are to be “found” and not “applied.” I want what I do to open up a new way of seeing something that I am already familiar with. Questions are more important than answers.