Tipped into sheer prefiguration

René Laubies (French, 1924–2006)
Mykonos, 1958.
Oil on paper laid on canvas,
65 x 100 cm. (25.6 x 39.4 in.)

On learning of the passing of Rene Laubies the figurative infix died all around me. It had taken the death of my friend and teacher to tip me into sheer prefiguration. I had never been able to go there before in spite of my arriving to the crucial point of esteeming non-figuration solely. I had never been able to bring to an end the image/figure referencing impulse. So I simply quit painting and stuck to writing. Yet the drive to go total—to go without—adhered to me through years of intention-bearing écriture: a quiet metamorphosis advancing formulations of a cumulative method that revealed correlation to the blind operations of an illiterate calligraphist.