Back from the brink

detail. work in progress. 

Deconstructivism. That is my word of the day.

I am back in my studio working on the same paintings that I started a month or so ago. It's only since last week's experiment that I have decided I really like it when the canvas bits aren't so uniform and perfectly glued down. At first, I was trying to cover up the old maps adhered to the panel with bits of raw canvas and begin anew but now I really like the maps peeking out. This morning when I got to the studio, I started painting the previously coffee stained canvas bits white. I then spontaneously pulled one of the glued pieces of canvas off to see what it revealed and then I fell in love with what I saw and I remembered things.

I kept pulling bits off, saving the pieces and then later reconstructing the deconstruction. I just wanted to enjoy the textures, the energy, the colors from underneath and I didn't really care if it looked damaged. I love things that look damaged just like I love it when the greenery overtakes forgotten buildings. This is happening in these works, rebuilding, decay and then tearing it down and putting it back up but with the decay rearranged. These works are not smooth and will not be glossy afterwards. These works are dirty and wrecked but in this wreckage you find beauty. You find little gems and it feels honest. The whole time I was thinking, make the work you want to make. Make the work you want to see. This is my revolution. Tear it apart. It felt wonderful. I don't know when I last felt this, I just can't even remember.

And time did that thing! I put on an album and walked away and suddenly fifteen long songs had played and I couldn't believe it, it was as if I just put the record on. That rarely ever happens anymore. Today it happened. No wonder artists get so depressed, to feel this and then to have it go away! It's like being a magician and someone takes your magic away for a long time and locks it in a box and hides it right under your nose with the key around your neck but you still can't find it. It is horrible.

So what changed? Well, today I saw my future and I hadn't even dared to dream of one in such a long time. I completed a three week meditation course yesterday meaning that today I could either stop or find another. I found another one based on imagining our desires and manifesting those feelings into life. After the meditation I wrote exactly what I envisioned and what it felt like. I hadn't dared to think that way in ages. I had to unlock that box. I had to dare to dream, dare to want, dare to try. 

I hope I get to stay here for a while but I will take what I can get. I was just beginning to wonder why I was doing so much yoga, meditation and self care and I was feeling like I wanted to quit and then today happened. That is why we must never give up. We are setting the stage for today.

Make the work you want to make. Make the work you want to see. This is my revolution. Tear it apart.

a series designed to break your heart.

This is typical but I feel like I have to warn you or give you a disclaimer. I love art, artists, talking about art, making art, selling art, etc etc.. If you know me at all, you know this is true.

But for this blog, I have to vent a bit. There are a several cool things going on in my art world right now, so I am not complaining and I know I am lucky etc etc..(see, more disclaimers) but right now I just have to express my complete and utter frustration in my lack at being able to paint. I mean, I really can not paint right now. It is like that part of my brain has slipped far away...

This is not the first time this has happened, more like the fifth or sixth... or perhaps this is the eighteenth time. I don't really know and it shouldn't come as a surprise or warrant a blog post but I feel if I don't write about the frustration of it all, I won't move past it. This is typical for me and for a lot of other artists. I just had a show. I worked almost all year on that show. That show is still on display and my studio is feeling a bit lonely- it misses the new white series, the hum of activity, the burst of inspiration and the direction that only a series can bring.

I spent some time looking at my paintings in the gallery the other day and I wanted to cry. I looked at them closely and I wondered if other people looked at them as closely and I wondered what the experience would be like for a stranger to look at them for the first time. Then I felt like I was a stranger. It just didn't feel possible that I could have painted those paintings. I could barely remember the sensation of the brush hitting the canvas, or the flicks of water that beaded up on the oiled surface. I couldn't remember the sound of that water running down the painting onto my paint encrusted easel and the onto the floor and then pooling below staining the concrete. I can tell the story but I can't remember the sensation. I remember jumping up and down in front of my easel. I remember screaming, singing, dancing, crying, writing the flurry of words that would burst into my head as I applied the paint. I would have to quickly scrawl them on my studio wall. Those words became titles and concepts and are woven throughout the white series and became A Manual for Living. I remember shaking and running down the hall to get my studio mate to see something new that I was unsure of. I remember taking snapshots and sharing them with my online studio mates across the ocean. I remember questioning and doubting, and then I remember things being revealed. Suddenly, the path clearly lit for a second and then pushing through to actualize the painting.

I want that all back. I want that back now, I want to get back there! When I stand in front of my easel now, there is nothing. There is no story, no longing, no expression, it feels like repetition, it feels like being born but all my dreams and talent are gone, it feels like a void, a deep absence.

I know I want it too much, and that I am holding on too tight, I can't go back. I know all this. I know this is just the customary post show blues. I know this is fear talking. On my studio wall, more scrawled words, "There is no room for fear in art"- those words emerged while working on one of the last massive pieces in the series.

The other day in an inspired flash, I had an idea for a new series of paintings, it would be called "a series designed to break your heart..."

I think I may have already painted it and I broke my own in the process...




Until next week keep fighting, and I will do the same.
This week.. leave a comment and be entered to win a 9x 12" paper painting. Yes, really. I will draw one random winner and announce the winner next week.