What’s Wrong with this Picture?
Charles Clough
Excerpts from notes, 1972-82, published in COVER Magazine #6, Winter 81/82

The hidden meaning
imagine, realize, identify
recognize identities represented;
stylized figuration, bearing resemblance
draw across a scenic surface
gesture and image cohabitate
concurrently real, imaginary, etc.
my work is my excuse to live
felt not understood
I identify it
it doesn’t identify me
the photo reveals, the paint conceals
“...to play against...”—Dore Ashton
I look, choose, cut, paint, arrange, photograph,
project, trace, and present as necessity demands
sense and nonsense become a symbol
“A vast pun, a free play...”—Norman O. Brown
“Those images that yet
Fresh images beget”—W. B. Yeats
some distraction
perfect inspiration
see worthy
not original
radical—a basic, a fundamental
I dig my foundations
intentional tensions
Raphael—Titian
Rubens—Poussin
Pollock—Warhol
Walt Disney—Chuck Jones
fine ground monsters
rendered harmless
same game reframed
aporia galore
I fix pictures
act off art repros
send me one
I’ll do it
mess it up
connect the dots
gild the lily
pretentious revisionism
quick or dead?
“quotation, parody, allusion”—Harold Rosenberg
souls returned
paint free
image see
a course of choices
bodies of experience
condensed and rendered
my multiple motifs
alien, foreign, familiar, recognizable
coherent wave patterns
redrafted
to give a start
to catch an eye
compel attention
goony humor
foolishly volunteer
surrendered under no threat
ridiculous displays of hides and blinds
forged—wrought or counterfeit?
snake in the grass?
clothes or guts?
into, onto, across or through?
tricks are truth
superficial painting is its own proof
some kind of happiness
some kind of fear
lucky paintings
for lucky moments
to give you all
my very best
my story
my language
how the look changes
that’s how
my what is
a condition of practice
slow continuing education
my self sentence
job description
inspiration delivery
marks screens splits
“...remains to be seen...”—Michael Snow
habits tuned well
“...impulse, fear, will...”—Otto Rank
my work
becomes yours
I blend looks
mix spirits and pigments
to choose, to confuse, to do
actual by virtue of
material destruction celebration
characters of colors
invented, coded, loaded and coated
prototype, stereotype and convention
layers of choices
different ways
for different days
letters, figures, fingers, hands, eyes, brains, guts
and livers
cases of currency
sets of standards
work book bond issues
picture smith forgeries
discover, select, invent, redo
no reasonable conclusion
but no need
for excusing
why I see
this mess
of mistaken identity
blank stare
blind urge
my subject
your object
you consume me
one sees
our seas
of
energies
images
melted together
the body
mine
yours
ours
I
make
your eye
your eye
is mine
I
mine
your eye
you dig.