A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney

Source: http://www.martingayford.com/

I just finished this book, and now I am in love. With everything. David Hockney of course, but also the "author" Martin Gayford. I put author in quotes there because he is half the conversation. The book is Hockney chatting with Gayford, in a series of conversations that seem to span years. Gayford is a great narrator- he knows a lot about Hockney and he knows art and he knows how to open the whole subject up, in an easy way.

One of the simple lessons to walk away from reading this book with, is simply that an interest in everything is a great thing to cultivate. I was reminded of that because today I read Steve Job's eulogy by his sister- she talked about how he was interested in boat building, Rothko paintings, architecture, etc, even as he worked diligently at being a computer genius. Hockney is the same kind of person- he's 74, and he's still picking up new tricks, like his iPad paintings. He's really into opera, and does set design, and that informs his work on perspective and landscapes, he's interested in films and driving and so he makes films and drives around looking at things, and that leads him to bigger paintings,  his interests in photography push him to figure out how the old masters used camera obscura- everything he turns his brain towards ultimately connects back to the art he makes.

And in A Bigger Message, Gayford really shows you the vastness of the world between David Hockney's ears, with such incredible economy. The book is not long or intimidating, but it's just jam-packed with ideas and a sense of the whole life of the man, as he looks back on it now. It's amazing to see how much this man's life is like a fuge- all the things that may have seemed like random avenues when he was younger, all fit together nicely, and create an overwhelming sense of who David Hockney is now.

I've been looking at a lot of Hockney as I try and figure out the perspective on my third panel of my triptych. I've mostly finished panel one, and I'm saving panel two for the end, so I'm on panel 3 right now. It's been a long couple of months of travel, far too far away from the studio for my comfort, but in the meantime it has been a fertile time for thinking, about how to accomplish the perspectivial challenges presented by the third panel. All of the panels are too long and tall to make a comfortable shape to work with, so they're really pushing me to an interesting place. Panel 3 is especially evil as a long tall shape is exactly the wrong way to do a landscape. But if you look at Hockney, he's really a genuis with making perspective work even when it's all wrong, something he learned partially from Chinese scrolls. I hope to see "A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China" soon.