maybe not so crazy...

i came across this, this morning:

"Yesterday I was being curious again about one of my little habits--a habit that some artists might relate to. I like to start a painting off in a mess and then try to harness and control the thing. It’s appealing to me to make something unruly into something ordered. Please don’t mention this to anyone--right now I’m compulsive about it.

Others too have told me about a mode such as this--something we’ve named “commit and correct.” This mode, enacted somewhat unconsciously, permits a worker to see her work holistically. This means an all-at-once focusing that allows a work to “materialize” rather than develop out of areas of calculated rendering. The brush becomes rather like a bee going to flowers, here, there, everywhere. More than anything it’s a matter of looking at and asking what something--any part, or all of it--looks like, then defining it better. Further, it’s often a matter of putting a colour--any colour--on the brush and somehow being guided to where on the painting it is needed."

it was written by Robert Genn, who has a website called the painter's keys. i highly recommend subscribing to his letters, they come twice a week and have wonderful insight and good practical advice. they are geared towards (representational) painters but anyone involved in creative expression might find inspiration in them.

anyway, it's a fairly good description of part of my process and reading it got me off the computer and into my studio to keep working on this monster.