On Process and Perfection

 

Meditation in the Elysian Field, 2026, 30 X 30 inches 

Wouldn’t it be remarkable to be able to ask da Vinci or Michelangelo about their process of painting and if they pre-visualized every image or if there were significant discoveries during the making of an image? Did they feel that their best works were solely their’s or was there a higher power’s helping hand in the creating?

 If we consider the art of making to be a shared experience with matter, guidance and ourselves, it involves a degree of trust and as Rick Rubin’s suggests, some detachment. Just like life, the creative is always reacting to the circumstances of the moment. Make one corner more blue and something else will undoubtedly have to shift as well to balance that color. Sometimes just like life, we paint ourselves into a corner and perhaps it takes some effort to get out with grace.

When we reach an impasse, we may experience feelings of hopelessness. The ability to stay out of the story, zoom back, and see new pathways into and around a challenge will be of boundless use. ………our imagination frees us from the web of personal and cultural stories engulfing us. Art has the power to…open our minds to what’s possible, and reconnect with the eternal energy that moves through all things.*

I love that Rubin's uses the words, eternal energy, because it signifies to me that there is an infinite opportunity to find a solution. I often work on a painting over many years, I may show it and then change it later on if I feel I can improve upon it in someway. I am not particularily attached to working quickly; as per the painting above which has been an eleven year journey. In the lower right area of the image there was from the onset a hawk, a specific Harris's Hawk that a photographer friend had photographed in captivity. The bird had been rescued and she met it at an event. I did my best to capture its likeness from her photo --the hawk was very focused and intent. In the process I grew quite fond of the image but try as I might, it never felt completely resolved, I would put it aside but I kept at it, changing one area and then another until one day I determined to set the bird free. I painted over his striking face and shoulders. I came to understand the painting: Black bird had spoken. She came to represent the inner bird, the place one goes in deep meditation, the place of symbolized by the Eye of Horus. 

(to be continued....)

*Rick Rubins

The Creative Act, 226-227