First steps
a little cheesy and cliché but it started my year of exploration through paint
Creative high
There have been only a few times in my life that I have felt a true creative high - when the lights are brighter, colors are more vivid, and I can feel buzzy energy dancing around my body. I spent a morning just staring at the light streaming through a bottle of blue dish soap. Starting a new year like this was a gift, and I put out an ambitious goal to create a painting every day - 365 for the year. I was ready to re-connect with the process of creating art without the digital convenience of CMD-Z or controlling adjustment layers with a mouse-click. I was ready to embrace the 'beautiful oops' and start seeing - really seeing - what was in front of me.
Adjustment one: just paint
It became clear pretty quickly that a painting a day was too ambitious for me. I have 3 jobs, 2 kids, and more importantly, I wanted to make good art - not just cross that item off my daily checklist. My first adjustment was to just paint, every day, even if it was only for ten minutes.
Adjustment two: just paint
After a few successful months of supportive friends commenting on and even buying paintings, it became easy to fall into the mindset of what sells, what gets likes, what is resonating with my audience. More than once I had to force myself to do something outside my comfort zone. Some of those paintings were gessoed over the next day, some I'd sit with for a week or two before scrapping and some were actually successful (in the sense of fulfilling what I needed to learn; whether people liked them or not wasn't really important at that point). I realized my compulsion to paint wasn't about quitting my day job, but more about the need to create something that I felt proud of because it wasn't easy AND translated from my brain the way I wanted it.
I felt this idea hard, but it didn't work out the way I wanted
This was a successful attempt (IMO) away from figurative art
Creative low
Non-painters usually think painting is relaxing - it most definitely IS NOT. It's a back and forth struggle, a conversation that either flows like you met your soulmate or crashes into a car of rabid animals. I was pretty consistent all through the summer, meeting the challenges I set for myself and putting out work that I liked, but that gnawing, whining, Gollum-y voice that I needed to do more was building a fire.
Not painting every day
September and October were barren months - not one painting. I wanted to create something meaningful, something real, and without an idea of how to do that, I made nothing. I knew I was in a down cycle and my lying brain was dismissing the joy people get from paintings that aren't dark, or political, or fraught. But there was some truth to the fact that I could be doing something deeper, and if I wanted to be a real artist, I'd need to figure out how.
The dissonant chatter of mediocrity
Not painting became a problem. Again, although painting isn't relaxing, there is a meditative aspect to it. You are required to be in the moment. There is a certain gratitude in being able to see a blue-green shadow and a golden highlight in a white daisy. There is a peacefulness when color and composition are resolved. So in November I slapped myself in the face and used my frustration as inspiration.
It worked sort of?
I didn't intend for my latest paintings to give me answers, but as art speaks from the deepest parts of our consciousness, they did. Stay tuned for my 2019 art plan 🙂
