Subtraction/Addition Exercise #3

From No Happy Endings by Nora McInerny: 

The first rule of improv is YES. 

Well, YES, AND …  

the AND is important. 

YES is acceptance and acknowledgment 

of the reality you've been handed. 

AND is where the good part happens. 

The good part is a conjunction? 

You bet it is. 

Because AND is about possibility and opportunity. 

AND includes WHAT IS 

and makes room for WHAT COULD BE. 

AND doesn't require you to love the situation, 

or to like the situation; 

it just requires you to live.

Nora McInerny's book is entitled No Happy Endings, but, just as I finished quoting her above, I bumped into Orson Wells who says:

If you want a happy ending, 

that depends, 

of course, 

on where you stop your story.

So, I said YES to b&w exercise #3, accepting and acknowledging the line work that had brought it to this point:

.

Then I said AND … after which I brought it here:

Exquisite Tension

If pressed, I'd probably say I carry the word tension in my mind with a negative connotation.

And yet, the exquisite tension intrinsic to the creative process of painting is precisely what pulls me back over and over again to my studio. That tension lives in a place between pain and pleasure that is compelling. Positive. 

I'm grateful to have kept experimenting with this particular painting.

I'm grateful for the physical properties that allow for surface tension on water and the gift of autumn leaves that perform a delicate dance on the stage of a pond.

Humming a Ditty
5.5 x 8"; acrylic, ink, watercolor pencil, oil pastel, and collage 
on heavy card stock
abstract landscape
2022