The Art of Charles Muench Newsletter

Summer 2014

"Sierra Tilts and Angles"

24" x 24" Oil on Linen

Maynard Dixon Country Invitational 2014, Mt. Carmel, UT.

"If you steer toward an object, you cannot perfectly and indefinitely steer directly at it... but you can steer exactly at a compass point, indefinitely. That does not change. In going toward a headland, for example, you can steer directly for it while you are at a distance, only changing course as you approach. Or you may set your compass course for the point and correct it by vision when you approach. The working out of the ideal into the real is here- the relationship between inward and outward, microcosm to macrocosm. The compass simply represents the ideal, present but unachievable, and sight-steering a compromise with perfection which allows your boat to exist at all."

-John Steinbeck The Log from the Sea of Cortez

And so it is with painting. You can map out the course of your career, but the currents of life and individual temperament cause oscillations which, though appearing to be a divergence from your compass point, are merely a variation in the overall journey. I have spent a good part of this summer exploring northern Nevada. Like Steinbeck in

The Log from the Sea of Cortez, these trips were for research. I wanted to explore the open spaces of Nevada and find something to say about it in paint. I covered a lot of ground, stopping to talk to the rocks and listen to the colors of this part of the country. I found a lot to say and these trips will result in new paintings.

The course of my travels may leave a wide serpentine wake upon the water, but I am moving forward to my personal headland- expressing my passions in paint as I go.

Thank you for your continued interest in my art.

Charles

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