Out of the many things that cause me to question why I continue to paint, the need - the constant need - for seemingly increasing amounts of money happens most often. I have two days in a row to paint. When money is an issue, I drift away from my projects, my two days, and stare at whatever is there. The syrupy nature of doubt causes it to spread slowly, its sticky blob spreading from the crown of my head to the work of my hands. Other times, doubt comes dressed as activity and it takes all I can do to realize that I’m stalling. It’s like trying to grab a furiously spinning thing or an out-of-control lawn mower - the approach becomes important. Either way, I eventually become aware that I have been caught in a tidal pool of doubt. Thinking about my two days, a voice interrupts; “Why aren’t you working at a job? You could be earning money today. You should be doing something. Are you just going to let this be your life? Is this what you want? No wonder…” - from there the voice gets pretty negative.
Oppressive.
I spend time thinking about ways out, ways forward, and then spend half a day on YouTube letting other people show me why I’m right or wrong. Before I know it, my two days have passed with no work done, but more importantly, no peace found.
Long after the sea deposited me, I remain in a shrinking pool wondering what to do, how to do it differently, if I am lost, and will the tide return in time to save me.
Will the tide return…
I cannot recall any major wins this year and that is discouraging. It doesn’t help when there is nothing to point to, when I must rely on past good things to get me through the present and into a hopeful future. A theme for my life is just how heavy hope is to carry. It is hope, in part, that keeps me painting, as rationality figures little in the choice. A rational voice would not have even started. We are not rational beings made of math and biochemistry. We are beings of hope.
Will the tide return…
I spend days choosing which references to use - weeks, in truth. I find someone to make the custom panels. They arrive. Instead of happily beginning work from my hard-chosen references, letting initial washes of color and the feel of painting fill me up, I lay out the design and walk away having done all my will can bear.
Somewhere inside, my heart makes a fire on the beach. Undulating and unpredictable lines of wet sand seem far away. The horizon disappears as all things become night.
Layers.
I think in layers.
There are few things that I know of that are actually simple, uncomplex, uniform in their construction. Simple.
Life isn’t. Married life, especially. I can’t imagine married life with children. So many layers. I can’t even manage the few elements of my life, let alone have positive influence in the lives of others who are dependent.
But -
another theme of my life seems to be dissoultion, dissolving, disappearing - becoming nothing. I mean this in a positive way. We all know people who have both hands on the steering wheel of their life and who, if allowed, would have their hands on other people’s wheels as well. These types seem to get what they want out of life.
I’m not that guy.
I wait. I let things pass. I try to keep empty hands at the risk of becoming Hamlet.
I’m unsure a lot of the time and I appear to be doing nothing, but waiting on purpose isn’t nothing. Waiting (some might call it having patience) has given me a long view of life, as if I see in the stretched or hazy blurs of a long exposure instead of as a snapshot. Trends - the little spikes and dips - look like a smooth line if viewed from far enough away. That’s how I view things. This is generally good. It is good to know that, if I don’t get a summer tomato at its peak, I can get one next year. If I don’t get into a show this year, I have another chance another time. I may have disappointed myself and others, but my life isn’t over. Winter comes, then Spring. Night will fall, but rest may come. And there is a fire. I do love little fires.
I know I can’t get it all right as I go, so I relinquish that control and take hold of the power of forgiveness and persistence. I feel lost, but I’m not running away. There is a difference. My will is one thing, but I wait to hear more. I must decrease, He must increase.
I make the marks, stain the surface, scuff it up, and step away. I step farther back. I turn to a mirror to view it in reverse. I move farther away and sit on the corner of the bed. Doing nothing, it seems. Days pass. Another layer. More scuffs. More color. More sitting. More face in the hands. The line of wet sand still far from me.
I say,
“When you are silent, I will be still.”
A pause. The space expands. I feel a breeze.
The horizonless sky, the envelope of night, have lessons, too.
“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
- from The Lord of the Rings
Below are three images of the first passes at a painting for the Coors Western Art Show. One day, I may unmoor myself from the docks of realism and the naturalistic coasts and drift toward some other land. If I do, it will be in no small measure because of sections like these. One day I will not say, “I wish I could just leave it like that.”
LASTLY
you will find a “good-idea-not-great-execution painting”.
I consider it a study.
Have you stood still long enough to feel your body warm up with the sunrise, to dissolve into its warm envelope of light?
I titled it “Affection”
What a deeply freeing feeling to behold a thing becoming itself, with no thought of control over it, it becoming better than any idea we had about it.
The moment you realize that you already have more than you ever thought you would
When all your failures try to ignite but are smothered by a reminder from simpler times
A gift from someone you didn’t know was watching
There is always more to say, but my drink is all gone, so I leave you here.