Surface

I finally got back in the studio yesterday.  I guess my last show left more of a mark on my confidence than I thought it had.  Three weeks back or more, I bought a couple of big canvases and a bunch of paints – trying to trick myself into feeling creative.  It didn’t take and the paints and the canvases stood impotent, locked behind the studio door until yesterday’s unexpected productivity windfall pushed the door open. In bed early Friday night, out of bed early Saturday morning, yard work done by noon, laundry shortly after – I even practiced my chip shot in the back yard for a little while and watched an entire (ridiculously uneventful) Braves game for the first time this year.  Now what?

I hadn’t tackled a big blank in a long time and in hindsight I probably should’ve banged out a couple of little pieces to get the juices flowing again.  I had a vision when I stood up to paint but the conclusion was light years away from the start when I sat down at the end of the night.  I’ve said before that art happens when you least expect it and I’ve never believed that more than I did last night.  I’ve forced canvases that have sold for a lot of dollars and most of them weren't that good and hardly any reached my expectation of what could have been.  I’ve never been aware of what the best thing might look like until after the fact.  That’s not to say that I think that anything I’ve ever done or ever might do is or will be great.  Seeing the difference is the most difficult part – the trouble is always the seeing, right?

I painted for five, six hours and hated every move, I hated everything I saw unfolding on the canvas. After much debate, I decided to scrap it all and start again fresh this morning.  For an artist of any stripe this is equivalent to a walk of shame.  I scraped down the canvas, defeated.  As I did I began to see what I hadn’t seen prior.  I saw what I had second-guessed for the entirety of the night.  I saw the possibility in what I had perceived as a mistake and discovered an unlikely vehicle through which I could share it.  I found that the beauty of what I was trying to say was lying dormant beneath the surface of the layers and layers of nonsense I had heaped on top.

The lesson, if there is one is that one shouldn’t look only at the surface.  Let the underneath reveal itself.  When it does, embrace it.  You never know when the surface might fracture or where those cracks might lead you if you follow.  I’ve written before that art is everything that you see.  As it turns out, it’s also what you don’t see sometimes.  Who knew?

I call this one surface. 

  

surface

30" x 30"

07.27.2013