It’s a german word that goes to the heart of its people (look at their history, they have had lots of it): Auseinandersetzung is a word describing anything from pointedly thinking about something, to having a debate, to having a fight, right on to having a full-out war. It is a word used by more educated people over there to cloak the brutality of war – sometimes. Other times it is used to describe a ‘coming to terms with’ a subject of some difficulty, where there are multiple points of view, or conflicting interests. As such it is a very good word to describe why I do art, why I have the need to sketch, daily.
If I come across a situation that shouts out to me, and I do not engage, do not put pencil to paper to come up with a decent representation of it – I find it comes back again and again. It requires me to come to terms with, sometimes more ‘brutally’ then not, until I have done it some justice in a sketch. Only then can I let go of it. Don’t know if you have that kind of thing going, but I do. Sometimes it’s a real nuisance, oftentimes I feel blessed.
This sketch is “Loon on White Lake”, where I spent an evening not too long ago with some brother-in-laws in a boat during a lightening storm. Some of us get smarter later…