I last left you with, "wait, breathe, listen."
Well, I heard something this morning I want to share.
I
continue to absorb The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn and this
morning one of her quotes on which I have been meditating flashed with
some new meaning for me, "We can only be a success in a line that
interests us greatly."
I know I am interested
greatly in painting, but the specifics have taken awhile to formulate themselves. I have always been well aware that it is disastrous
for me to try to paint to the market. I have to go within and separate
myself from what I know or think is sellable, likable, popular, etc. The
act of separation is a large part of the labor of my creative process. I also make
great effort to separate myself from all schools of thought, including
the classics. I have this belief that there is something inside me that
has a life of its own, that is pure and powerful. It has the ability to
express itself most clearly when I do not interfere, censor, or try to
help it out.
I view all of my previous training
as capable of hindering as much as helping. Either is possible and I
must be alert to the possibility of both.
So my
painting activities at times seem more like floating and playing. I
pull things out of the storage drawers of my mind, toss them out on the
worktable, and allow the possibility that I should scrape them all into the
garbage. I ignore some of them, I paint over some of them, and when they continue to resurface
and reappear, it is like bells ringing in unison, or maybe it's more
like hearing, "BINGO!"
As I am creeping up on sixty years of this, I realize my BINGOs are:
1. the initial visual musings & whim
2.
kin-aesthetics - [my made-up word] not just the illusion of touch-ability, but actually reaching out and
touching so that you have a physical experience with the painting [so
much for showing my paintings on the internet! HA!]
3. reaching out to others
4. nurturing, healing, & revealing
These
intentions are at my core and I feel I am finally seeing them come
together in my work. I will stop here because I want to go paint now.
Maybe I will say more tomorrow. I want to tell you about the copper and
the mica.
Wait, breathe, listen, and paint!
-suzy