The Time Between
Yesterday I was so frustrated with the big canvas that I painted the whole thing an off-white color and left the studio.
Now I am ruminating over it. Finally, I have reason to look through the piles of old art magazines I’ve saved over the years. (See, I knew they’d come in handy one day!) I leaf through those magazines, looking for something that connects: a surface, an image, a color. Last night I found something. It was a photo of a prehistoric wall painting.
It makes perfect sense that I'd be drawn to such an image, since my greatest inspiration is the earth and physical surfaces. Those paintings by early humans are consistently aesthetically and scientifically elegant. Our specie was so much closer to the essentials of living. Imagine, for example, how quiet it must have been. Even though the brain may not have been as highly developed as it is today, the sensorial experience of life was a much bigger part of our awareness. When I am locked safely into my studio and I don't have to worry about being disturbed, I relish the time to pick up little things dropped onto the studio floor. Sometimes, I find beautiful pieces of paper stained and marked by the random movement of their life.
I am a sensualist. I think I paint from the sensations in my fingertips as much as anything. The senses are very important to me. Even line, especially calligraphic line, which can be very cerebral, conveys physical movement in my work.
Anyway, all this 'thought-talk' is to say that today’s blog addresses the issue of painting when the brush is not in my hand. What is painting in the time between the movements of the brush?
Do not confuse this with that nonsense about creative blocks. I don’t believe in creative blocks. I am simply at a point of reflection and thought. I am not only painting when my brush is in motion. I am also painting when I am contemplating the piece, the process, the intention, and the spiritual receptivity I need to go further. (Remember: make something happen, and let something happen.) This part of the process demands patience and deep faith in creativity, and its veracity in a largely commercial and violent society.
If this hasn’t given you enough to think about, I am going to do something I’ve never done before: I am going to publish two posts in one day. This reflective time in the painting studio can be made exceedingly painful, if the painter becomes bogged down by self-doubt. That doubt is actually the nature of what has come to be called “creative blocks”. So when I say I don’t believe in creative blocks, it’s because the 'blockage" is not in the creativity process. Rather, the interior atmosphere darkened by self-doubt becomes a deadly environment for creativity. Self-doubt is about self-identity. The next post addresses the issue of self-identity, using an excerpt from my novel, Persephone’s Tango.