Yesterday I wrote about re-booting my back to the basics approach, and today I just want to add a short note about love stories.  If you are a process painter, the doing is the story. Leaving room to unfold, letting the painting take you down what ever road it travels, a free falling love story that writes itself.

I worked for part of my life with community and school groups and individuals using art as a means of expanding communication, enhancing relaxation, releasing emotion. I would hear my voice say again and again, the product is a gift from the process. It may disintegrate from interaction, it may go through stages of being beautiful and not so much, it may carry away a story and ultimately you may end up happy with the image as a representation of the process.

The poppy I started yesterday is kind of that painting. I don’t know where it will end, perhaps quite likely in my study stack. Today though, I am falling for texture created exclusively by brush strokes and oil, little dancing glazes play across thicker blocks of wet paint, scratches in, later sanded sections may follow. There is so much joy in an unfinished, unplanned venture.

Yesterday a painting friend asked about getting back to her work, and in thinking about it my most honest suggestion is show up. If when you get there you organize your tools, tidy your space, listen to your music, that’s okay too, but show up. If you show up daily, your painting voice will call you out to play, and somewhere along the way you may find the joy is in the journey. Your piece may be a study, may disintegrate from interaction, may move through phases from ugly to beautiful and back again. It may end up on the wall or in the trash but ask yourself at the end of the experience was something gained. If you are honest with yourself, I bet the answer will be an affirmation.  Jump in! I double dog dare ya 😉