Painting

“Why Reify the Content of Art?”

We have a desire, a need, to anthropomorphize God – and similarly, although to a lesser degree, to reify the content of art.

“Should I Paint on the Canvas?”

Look at that block of stone. Feel its spirit. Then ask yourself, Should it be sculpted?

“See Deeper by Viewing Upside Down”

When I want to study the structure of a sufferer’s face, for this determines so much of his vitality, I have him lie down and I sit above the vertex of his head.

“Come Unto Me”

“Come unto me”: the paper calls – and the brush smiles.

Video: Making Paintings for Healing

Dr. Diamond discusses the development of his unique approach to making paintings for healing.

Video: Art as Metaverbal Communication

An excerpt from opening lecture of Dr. Diamond's exhibit at the Katonah Village Library in Katonah, NY, July 2011.

“Free Association”

Of course, I can be spontaneous, un-thinking, un-editing, when I paint. After all, I spent more than six years in daily psychoanalysis saying whatever came into my head: free association.

And I learned from this experience to trust my inner self, to give it its freedom. I came to Know that there was a Power that could heal me if I could just remove my ego restraints on It.

“Zuihitsu: Following the Brush”

I don’t write books, but essays which are sometimes later collected into book form. The Japanese call essays zuihitsu, literally, “following the brush.” And it often seems to me that this is the way I write – the words just coming out of my pen, as if automatic. Or at least how I would freely talk.

“Artists Often Declare”

Artists often declare that their work comes from their unconscious. That’s an ego-proclamation, of which they are proud.

But, unlike them, there are painters – never artists – who are led to believe that the work seemingly by them is really merely through them. And they bow before it in humility, in homage.

“Empty and Full”

I do some drippings and flingings which vaguely – very vaguely – resemble Jackson Pollock’s.

One of our many differences is that I leave considerable space, whereas he fills every inch of his canvas. Too much, I think. No plains, all mountains. Nowhere to relax and breathe.

Every inch is filled – is wondrously full, but there is no emptiness.