Iteration 3: Thinking About the Deer Photo
The photo above, tagging the current commentary, was initially intended as a placeholder in this virtual Internet world. I needed a picture because the website called for one and I didn’t want to use the standard substitute they provided: Caribou. (I started to say ‘or reindeer’ and then remembered they are the same) in some cold tundric place didn’t provide the familiarity I wanted.
So, in the lived world I inhabit, this photogenic fawn was newly born in the native grasses off my back porch, and, for a little while, I thought of him as my new studio assistant. But he wasn’t particularly interested in my abstract efforts. And I don’t think his mother exactly approved, either. She was rather suspicious of anything other than straightforwardly objective representational work.
Anyway, I was just amusing myself here, figuring I’d toss in the photo and the couple of sentences I’d written while I, instead, took some time to come up with comments focused on Art. That’s what I’m supposed to be talking about, right?
But then it occurred to me: Writing this little series of sentences ‘feels’ exactly like what I experience when painting.
As orientation, I have a spectrum of entry points to my paintings, ranging from very clearcut, largely complete ideas, often occurring to me in a dream or that adjacent twilight state we call hypnogogic – you know, where I’m vaguely aware but my hands aren’t on the steering wheel and my feet aren’t on either the accelerator or the brakes. Essentially, I’m just along for the ride.
That’s one end of the continuum: Some idea presented from an I-know-not-where-but-certainly-beyond-any-deliberate-intention-on-my-part source, wrapped up in a largely complete package. (I’m working on one of those right now….I’ll put it in these notes in a couple days. Look for Magenta, Yellow, and Teal. More on that when I get there).
The other end of the continuum arises in two ways.
One access point could accurately be described as ‘fooling around.’ Putting some paint on the paper leads to more paint on the paper. That process can continue for a long time. Lots of layers. Who knows what will eventuate?!
As an alternative access point, I make a ‘mistake.’ I launch an effort with some intention, and it all goes to hell.
Like I spill a bunch of blue on one end when I meant to create a brush stroke in red or I get distracted during a series of steps that requires some timing and, while walking the dog in the 300-degree heat, I recall my intention.
Or I just do something dumb – equivalent to the time I put my coffee on the top above my studio desk and, whirling up a step (accurate characterization) to handle another problem, I bumped a container on a higher shelf which – in perfect Rube Goldberg fashion (look it up if you don’t know my reference – it’s worth a few minutes) fell, knocking a cup full of brushes into a book that hit the coffee that ricocheted off another ledge to empty itself perfectly on the keyboard of my new MacBook Pro. (I should probably plug AppleCare, here).
As mistakes go, I think that’s a stellar exemplar of what also happens on my paintings, often leading to new discoveries … I mean because, what else am I going to do?
So, to bring us back to the main thread, in a way, finding myself reacting to the insertion of the fawn photo (and the associated memories) evokes exactly the same set of reflective responses as the cascading coffee cup or the spilled paint or the influx of ideas I don’t know how to field. An anomaly is inserted…and then I get to figure out how to make something interesting (at least to me) from it.
I think that’s my brand of whatever it is we call creativity. The assignment: Weave all these seemingly unrelated, purposeless pieces presenting themselves into a fabric that conveys some revealing, noteworthy observation about being alive … right now…as all of this entropy unfolds.
Kinda fun, really.