I am finding it hard to write in the wake of the news. You may well feel this too. What is the point, in the face of these times? To push paint around. Make, edit, try. I don’t know. I just know it is what I do. I show up. I try something. I try something else. I ask questions. Mistakes happen. Time passes. The work evolves.
I ride on the planet as it turns, and try through my art to make contact, to express joy, to offer a moment that may create another moment for someone else, somewhere in the infinite rotations of this world.
You may wonder how to move your own work forward as COVID strangeness drags on and the fall looms. Rule of thumb: first, show up. Wait for the right moment? Waste your time. “Butt in chair,” as Ann Lamott writes in Bird by Bird. Lousy first drafts. Pick up the pencil, doodle. Splash some paint. Keep going. Music helps. Or recordings of bird songs. Let other rhythms quiet the chattering brain. You are busy making art.
Then, take a break. Make a cup of tea. Sit and look at what you’ve done. Does any of it sing? What scrap, what gesture, what mark is worth saving? Focus on that. Do it again. Do it again, some more.
For me, weekly assignments have pushed me into new waters. This month’s brief: Think abstractly. Refine, leave out, simplify. Even tho’ I gave the same advice for years as a teacher, it’s another thing to be the student, and trying to clarify my own thinking. The effort released old memories of swimming lessons (which I hated). For weeks I held onto the pool’s edge. Afraid to get in over my head. Now, the investigation, shared over the internet, buoys me up. Hey. It’s just paint. You don’t drown. Let go. Swim out to into deeper water. Here’s distance the work has traveled this month. (Remember, every one, even the last all-pink image, has layers of “failed” attempts under what you see.)
When you need to stop, can’t muster the energy, page through piles of old work. Or pick up a book by an artist you admire. What is the idea that carries you forward? What are you trying to communicate? How can you say that visually - what colors, shapes, lines will you use - so it’s heard? Clear Seeing Place, Brian Rutenberg says that it’s not that less is more (it’s not), but that clarity matters. “If it doesn’t help, take it out. What’s the least amount of information your painting can have and still be a painting?”
Maybe we are all so overwhelmed - by stuff, news, anxiety - we need less. We long for clarity. Looking at contemporary art with my class, I begin to understand that, by its very lack of information, abstraction offers room to breathe. Look for what you can leave out next time, and what you can make bolder, simpler, so your audience can see.
For one abstract artist’s take - on color, media, intention - check out Hyumnee Lee: “Boldness: I like the word. I was once so weak and shy and passive. But I found out I was strong.”
“Sometimes life is hard or sad. But when we manipulate it in a good way, there is a lot of creative things we can find in it.” So. As a local artist put it:
