Certainty, Certainly Not

The past year in the studio has been a lot more straight-ahead than previous years. It's one thing to spend a great deal of time in there- tearing ones hair out, shamanessing all over everyone, questioning oneself to the point of paralysis but it's quite another to go in checking your insecurity at the door.

Ok, it's not that easy. I've just gotten better at maintaining the right mental state. I would compare it to meditation. When your mind wanders back to that arena that you've learned through experience isn't helpful to creation, you just return to quiet center, as one would a mantra. It's also like driving a car, constantly making minute corrections in order to keep moving forward.

None of this has helped me get my work out particularly, but that's another skill set and certainly a New Year's resolution.

There was another change that happened this year. I discovered that I was relying on painting ideas that I hadn't actually done yet as some sort of mental crutch. I would think, "Well, even if this doesn't work out, I have this other thing" without actually making any move to create this 'other thing' and thus not fully committing to what I was working on. When I realized I was doing this, it was a little embarrassing. It's as if I had to fluff myself up to stay positive. Well, there's got to be a way to stay real with yourself without tearing yourself down. There's got to be a middle road.

My solution was to do a couple of these 'other things' promising myself that I would withhold judgment. That no matter what it looked like that I would just stay above it somehow. If I wanted to continue down one of these paths, I just would- I wouldn't analyze it to death. I'm just going to let it happen, having actual faith in that thing I claim to have faith in: intuition.

Disciplinarian

So awkward trials gave way to a return to order, or a return to the need to organize thoughts, palettes, methods and the studio. I feel good about this- or I should say, I feel that intuitive pinch that tells me that this is correct. I think there can be this push to throw the baby out with the bath water in studio practice, when things aren't adding up, to keep asking 'why, why, why??' and continually redefining oneself unnecessarily.

Perhaps we do this in an attempt to hide our weaknesses from ourselves or in an effort to get somewhere quickly. Usually it drives us into increasingly tighter circles.

In either case, I'm glad to mix a wonderfully traditional palette with a full range, rediscovering some subtle colors that I appreciate in nature but haven't mixed specifically in a long time. Mmmm...purple. Yellow. And everything in between....

Awkward trials not awkward enough

Letters- not words, he says. And although it did finish with one legible word, he's right. And why it took me 2+ years to try something I wanted to do, I don't know. I only know it has to be a lesson and a command to OPEN up. Yes, it's a mediocre painting but it offers up some possibilities. 

First of all, the world didn't implode. When you go most of your life pinging from thing to thing and then find some measure of focus, it can be scary to throw something new in the mix. In fact, fear has trickled into everything and it is indeed the enemy. 

So, there are some letters in the painting. I guess my fear was masked as an assumption. An assumption that 'why bother it's going to be too declarative, pin it down too much, too grounded, be a red herring, etc' was made. It turned out to be mostly correct. But I forgot all the things you learn on the way- it had been so long since I threw a wrench in my work on purpose (having to dodge incidental wrenches from outside).

I learned that it will be possible for me to work with letters but that it's going to take more time/trials. I learned that using letters could offer yet another tool, another dimension in the painting. If I play with signifiers of space, is it so off-base to play with signifiers of language/sound? And if it is, I need to learn that the hard way. In fact, this painting isn't awkward enough, it's just crap. Really. Garage sale $5.