another way
3/12
in my opinion, my best work has always been the result of my having gotten to a certain "state of mind" in the studio.
it is a place of total desperation and while in it i simply don't care about anything; i feel i am at the edge of my life, nothing matters so i have no fear of the consequence of my actions. in this place i usually make huge sweeping changes to my work, driven from a need to actualize the anguish that i feel and the reality is, this tends to be produce my most interesting and pure work.
so, while i spend a great deal of energy trying to get to the root of my demons, i have always been wary of throwing the baby out with the bath water; i have never wanted to jeopardize my ability to access this sense of total disregard and lack of fear; a state of mind that i feel is directly linked to producing the results i want.
what i never thought to consider is; that if there is a door to this place through the shadow side, there must be one from the light. even if i had however, i am not sure i would have known how to go about finding it or if i would have believed that it could be available to me.
but this is exactly the place that my current exploration of process has lead me: in preparing for this show i have made a concerted effort to try to transfer the energy i see in my small work, into the large. my small work feels very direct to me and comes from a much freer place than the bigger canvases. for the past months, my process has been to work quickly and freely on many small pieces (the random thoughts series). then, without quite acknowledging that i am doing it, sneak up to working on an intermediate size and just when i feel as if i can identify being in some sort of flow: jump to the larger work. it's almost as if i was learning to ride a bike and someone was sneaking off the training wheels one at a time.
i have felt that this process working and that these last paintings have come closer and closer to what i am trying to do. when i wrote that "i had jumped" was when i realized that the only hope i had for finishing this work was to embrace this sense of abandon completely. it wasn't until yesterday that i realized that what i was actually doing was coming to that same place of freedom, being able to take risks, having no concern for the outcome, through a different door; the door of joy and play as opposed to the door of grief and pain.
THIS is an incredible confirmation of my process for me
(i still have to finish the paintings)
in my opinion, my best work has always been the result of my having gotten to a certain "state of mind" in the studio.
it is a place of total desperation and while in it i simply don't care about anything; i feel i am at the edge of my life, nothing matters so i have no fear of the consequence of my actions. in this place i usually make huge sweeping changes to my work, driven from a need to actualize the anguish that i feel and the reality is, this tends to be produce my most interesting and pure work.
so, while i spend a great deal of energy trying to get to the root of my demons, i have always been wary of throwing the baby out with the bath water; i have never wanted to jeopardize my ability to access this sense of total disregard and lack of fear; a state of mind that i feel is directly linked to producing the results i want.
what i never thought to consider is; that if there is a door to this place through the shadow side, there must be one from the light. even if i had however, i am not sure i would have known how to go about finding it or if i would have believed that it could be available to me.
but this is exactly the place that my current exploration of process has lead me: in preparing for this show i have made a concerted effort to try to transfer the energy i see in my small work, into the large. my small work feels very direct to me and comes from a much freer place than the bigger canvases. for the past months, my process has been to work quickly and freely on many small pieces (the random thoughts series). then, without quite acknowledging that i am doing it, sneak up to working on an intermediate size and just when i feel as if i can identify being in some sort of flow: jump to the larger work. it's almost as if i was learning to ride a bike and someone was sneaking off the training wheels one at a time.
i have felt that this process working and that these last paintings have come closer and closer to what i am trying to do. when i wrote that "i had jumped" was when i realized that the only hope i had for finishing this work was to embrace this sense of abandon completely. it wasn't until yesterday that i realized that what i was actually doing was coming to that same place of freedom, being able to take risks, having no concern for the outcome, through a different door; the door of joy and play as opposed to the door of grief and pain.
THIS is an incredible confirmation of my process for me
(i still have to finish the paintings)
