A Good Day

Paintings drying outside, while making room to continue working in the studio.

This does not always happen, but it’s a great day in the studio when I finish a painting.

It’s a wonderful feeling, of completion and progress. The fruit of many days and studio sessions of uncertainty.

When I paint, I am very in tune with my feelings and emotions.

If I’m feeling uncertain, unsure, or not confident about a painting, that feeling will be my entire experience, unless I can shake it; shift my focus towards a productive thought, mantra or vision.

I’ve seen how, whatever emotion I’m feeling winds up being reflected into the work.

Being able to not get too caught up in a one particular painting, is gold. So, I often work on multiple works at a time. This helps me from dwelling too much in my head, and prevents me from becoming too attached to the final outcome. This keeps the creative process fun, and playful opposed to allowing it to become grueling and “hard” work.

If I become too fixated on one particular painting, I lose trust in myself and over analyze each decision. I question every move, and second guess myself.

When in this state, painting is no longer fun.

The work becomes static, unoriginal, and uninteresting to me. And then I quit. I abandon the idea or procrastinate.

To offset this creative trap, working on multiple pieces help me tremendously.

I’m thinking less.

I am present, more.

I am moving about, present in my body, opposed to being off somewhere thinking.

I see a can of paint, open it, and apply that color towards whichever works it seems connected to, naturally, without thinking.

I act intuitively and impulsively, experimenting and exploring. Allowing the day to unfold. Moving from one work to another, applying one layer until I sense it is enough, then bring that work to a place, out of the way so it can dry, until its time to apply another layer.

With this process, there will be brand new works in the very beginning stage of its development, then many in that awkward, early stage where it does not resemble anything of beauty or order. There will be works that are maturing, forming their own personality, providing my subconscious ideas of where that painting desires to go, and who that painting desires to become.

And then, sometimes if I am lucky, I receive the sense, that the painting is finished.

There is nothing left for me to do.

I just feel like it is, what it wants to be.

A studio picture of Resolve, a work near completion; where the works standing above it, are in the early awkward phase of the creative process.

I don’t feel like, I asserted control over the work. That I purposely and intentionally with each move, mark, decision designed the final result of the work.

I feel more so as if, I listened, or was in tuned with myself, to know what to do next.

I’m feeling my way through, remaining open to see where I could possibly go; where insight will take me.

It’s a discovery.