Who's in Charge Here?

I have an idea I want to capture in paint, a feeling actually, the feeling of a particular afternoon from a few weeks ago. Not sure how having a vague idea and a conscious desire to express a feeling will play out.

I select a 6x6" substrate (canvas board this time) that I painted in 2014 and never liked. Dab some colors on the surface straight from paint tubes.

2014 painting done at Prince Edward Island

Move the paint around with a scruffy hardware-store brush, a foam brush, and my finger. Scratch the surface with a metal skewer.

first layer of coverup

Keep adding and moving paint around, do a bit of stenciling with a piece of mesh.

additional layers

This isn't how I planned to start this experiment at all, but my thinking brain gets mostly usurped by my intuition and body who tag-team and take over.

To Unfold Exactly

Deep inside, almost from day one, I've trusted my art to unfold exactly as it will unfold. 

My shallow outside, however, gets a little antsy and doubting at times, wanting to direct and control more than trust. Wanting to hurry things along or achieve a particular result. But for the most part, it is also surprisingly trusting. 

Really, what else can my art do but unfold exactly as it will unfold?

Jane Davies recently wrote about painting studies she'd done, saying: To me, it is important that these "studies" have no pressure on them to BE anything other than the result of a process. If they went directly into the wood stove now, it would be fine; their purpose has been served. I've made them, and I've looked at them.

Those words stopped me in my tracks. I might trust my art to unfold as it will unfold, but I do get attached to outcome.

I would LOVE to experience what Jane describes, to engage wholeheartedly and fully in studies that need be nothing other than the result of a process, to generate pieces that could go directly into a wood stove having served their purpose, with no backward glance from me, no pang of indecision, no grasping. 

My first impulse? Make it happen! do it! set it as a goal! start now! …

Oh.

Yeah.

Trust.

That experience will either unfold in my life or it won't.

Today I painted happily and freely, wonderfully open to intuition and play and experimentation. I was so content in quiet timeless flow in my teeny studio in my little house in the deep cold of winter.

free canvas #2
8x10"
work in progress