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

The Glorious Impossible

Handpainted paper, scissors, mod podge, and a new day.

Exquisite tension.

The glorious impossible.

The Glorious Impossible
playing with handpainted collage paper on a book page
abstract
2020

Collage Paper?

I like engaging in what I think of as the 'exquisite tension' of working a crossword puzzle or writing a haiku, accepting and embracing the limits and working within them assiduously to bring into bloom what the constraints call for—a six-letter word for prehistoric monument, fourth letter m, for example, or using five + seven + five syllables to express a thought or feeling with tight precision.

Here at Lyme Camp:
• limits—plentiful
• assiduous effort—plentiful
• tension—plentiful
• exquisite—less plentiful, since exquisite is in direct one-to-one correspondence with my acceptance (or lack thereof) of limits!

Two days ago, I worked within the begrudgingly-tolerated limits—cursing them more than once—of a few minutes, a few tubes of paint, an old book, and my finger as a paintbrush.

Collage paper?

---
Gratitude/simple pleasures:
• shoveling snow—purposeful, productive, practical exercise! fresh air! beauty every which way!;
• two surprise packages for me in the mail; and
• the grace of Meg's and my laughing in surrender last evening at the day's messy mix of foibles and accomplishments and rough edges and tendernesses and wooziness and failed efforts and vats of soup and indecision and tears and hugs.

Inexquisite Tension
playing with acrylic on a book page
abstract
2020

Constraints

My constraints today: (1) only a few minutes to play in my studio and (2) feeling stumped.

Tension arises from the combination of my having a pre- but barely-conceived idea in mind, not knowing how I might reach toward that idea, and resisting my intuition's call to let go of any specific outcome to instead respond to the canvas as it evolves.

The tension is just that: tension. Something pulled tight. Neither 'good' nor 'bad,' just something of which I am aware.

So.

I draw some lines with pencil and ruler.

I yield to the unpredictability of tracing those lines with a temperamental ink applicator.

Now I need to turn my attention elsewhere, so I prop this little 36 square inches of canvas on my desk, where it will catch my eye off and on until I get back to my studio tomorrow. Wonder what will percolate in the interim.

pencil lines
work in progress

India ink on top of pencil lines
work in progress