Continuing my exploration of subtle layers of paint, I wanted to suggest a bouquet, and also, perhaps, the sky. The petals start to dissolve the way clouds do; the color is a torrent of movement just beyond the eye. Certain paintings are moments of turning point for me. The painting above suggests a new direction I want to follow.
I am finally beginning to paint with intention. For a while now I have been critical of myself for not painting with a plan. I tend to paint without much of an idea, going to the canvas or board only with a pre-selected palette, waiting to see what would emerge. This is such a wrong approach, and probably a waste of paint, but doing a sketch and then proceeding just doesn’t interest me. I want the discovery, the struggle, the surprise of painting from inner signals. If I painted from a sketch, I would feel that the painting process was emptier; the afterthought of an already completed experience.
With this piece, I am still in clouds and flowers; a sky of color that emerges in the viewer's imagination and starts to take form. Colors are precipitated into suggestions, but can't quite be captured clearly. Later, I went to the studio thinking I would add a layer to this work. I looked, and with surprise, I thought, it's done!
With the painting process I am reminded of self-inquiry. One is stopped, quietly, by a perception. The perception blossoms into a question. Maybe it is a question about a human being. Why did he say that, what was he thinking? You pull the thread, slowly unravelling the experience until it dawns on you; I know, he wants her to agree with him, but she doesn’t. And the thought meanders in a different direction. Why is it so important to him that she agree?
The inquiry leads one back to oneself. What if a particular person’s agreement was the ballast in my life? If we disagree, are we too separate? Can we be together even if different to a great degree? What is together?
The paint colors swirl around on my canvas. I am following, or leading, I don’t know which. I enjoy the sensation of watching the appearing unfold. There are things I like and things I don’t like. I correct it, and then miss the part that I took out. There has to be a bit of ugly in every painting, my friend says. It seems true. It seems necessary.
Is it true for our lives?
In my practice, people talk about avoiding, removing, transcending suffering. Is suffering the bit of ugly? Do we need it? For seeing, for growing, for learning? Meaning is the redemption of suffering in our lives. For the one who has shifted to meaning as the greatest value, the tones and colors of suffering diminish. They diminish even more when seeing is the ballast. Seeing, or clarity, is the mountain range. The trials of the journey are the beauties along the way. Don’t try to take away the ugly.
So what is painting? For me it is an inquiry danced out in colors on a page. The identity appears and then I erase it, and erase it again. I am shaping and being shaped, looking and being seen by that quiet narrative voice that comments on my doings without opinion, without good and bad. It is a gentle voice; it emerges as I emerge. I the one who paints, I the one who is painted, I the one who witnesses painting. Where is it leading me; where do I lead myself?
Namaste