White noise is sometimes used to allay fear. If there is chattering around you feel like you are not alone.
but you are alone. Everyperson is basically alone in their own body. they might have friends all around but you are alone to make up all the decisions of the day.
Nobody likes to be alone. It is too quiet. Your mind turns up the volume on old tracts that replay in your head.
Too bad this the the only enviroment that works for getting art done.
But I have a trick that might help get over the aloneness.
Pretend you have a secret twin. Crazy as that sounds it works to have someone to discuss things with even if it is only an imaginary other side of your mind.
the other side of your mind usually knows all the answers and can always help you if you let it.
I think the Queen uses this method and that is why she always says ” We are not amused”
My twin has a life of her own. She is the exact opposite of what I am. Where I am weak she is strong. She is way more serious than me.
she keeps the checkbook straight.
She cleans up the house when I am done painting.
she has red hair. she always is up for an adventure.
Wouldn’t you like a friend like that . Well it is right there in your right brain.
conjure one up for yourself.
It is pretty fun do.
Oh yes my twin is named Zorro. and she is 34.
making up your life
I like to play the imagination game of what if anything your hands touched was successful and you knew that , what would you do.
I would invent an art library where you could check out art for a month and then bring it back or keep it. But all the art available was always in constant circulation so nothing was ever just stuck in a closet. It always lived and breathed somewhere.
Would that change anyones life to be able to get something that spoke to them and have it just like that. If art was not just for a small group who could afford it.
Books are for everybody. Isn’t art just as important as books.
I imagine the art IQ of a town that was doing this would be pretty high.
Does art have any value intrinsically. Is beauty just a nice thing but not as important as books.
What if I told you that seeing a lot of art would change you on a molecular level/ What if there were studies to prove that.
Here is my philosophy about art. The more you are expposed to it them more sensitive to beauty the more refined you will become. The more civilized you will become. The more ciivilized you become the less likely you will be to tolerate uncivility. You will learn to abhor crudeness.
I cannot see how that wouln’t be better for society.
the desire to seek refinement is like a plant leaning toward the light to grow.
It is in us to lean toward the light. You just have to have a lot of light available.
Dance
There was a time when I thought to do good paintings I had to dance for half a day and then paint. Something told me that was true but I never did it. I kept them separate/
The first idea is right. I was instinctively right the first go round.
Well it is never to late to do what you know you should have done in the first place.
The mind connection between painting and movement is simply it gets the cobwebs out so you can just paint and not fret.
The more tense you are are the more you will struggle to get something good out. And the more you struggle you will just dig your own grave.
But dancing before is a cure for that/
Moving through the air will make you slice through your mind blocks.
If I had a business I would insist everyone take a half hour dance break for every four hours worked. Rythmn is involved in feeling where you have to go/
You know why Woody Allen has such great jokes/// it is his timing. you know why he has great timing. He plays the clarinet.
He feels the timing in his bones.
Your head bone is connected to your arm bone and your arm bone is connected to your heart bone.
We have seasons and waves and day and night. Everything sort of has its own dance. its all connected.
Not working for an artist would be like the earth standing still. everything gets out of wack. You gotta go with the flow. Ride the wave. Move.
Abstracts
I have been doing some abstract painting for a change of pace and I have realized one thing. without a starting place of any image it is very hard to just start.
I did one painting and I was so pleased with it I thought I would do several more on the same vein. Once I got that idea in my mind it was like a worm.
It is hard to let it go and just do it. It is more than design and color. Paintings have a life of their own. They have to be what they want to be.
As wacko as that sounds it is true. In an abstract I think you have to totally take your left brain out of the mix and just be in the moment.
Whenever that moment shows up, you better jump on it.
Yesterday in the studio I was wanting to do an abstact of an iris without drawing an iris. I wanted it to feel like an iris but now have an iris in it.
Five hours later no painting but about a gallon of ink gone. Very Sad. It is hard to be loose when you are tight up freaking out mentally mad and paint an abstact painting.
This blog is written in honor of the pain all artists go through at time trying to get a new thing. Just by our nature we have to have a new thing or we dry up and die and it is so uncomfortable being dead and alive at the same time.
But I am embracing the pain and challenge and moving on. If it is too easy then you are either staying at the same old boring level or you don’t care. Both of these are bad.
If anyone ever says that abstracts are easy then they are crazy. They are the hardest of all to do. If you don’t believe me then just try it.I dare you.
The only thing
Life is hard to live from the inside out. It is way easier from the outside in. But we are stuck with inside out.
That is why it is easy to see what someone else should do but is harder to look at your own situation.
It is hard to be objective about ourselves.
Not only is it easier to see what everyone else should do it is hard not to tell them.
What we should do is listen to everyone else and just do what they say and not worry about it ourselves.
Should being the operative word here.
There is this other thing that gets in the way of perfect vision and that is fear.
The person that is not you has zero fear. They are like a robot.
Too bad we are not robots or we would say that is a great idea and I will impliment it immediately.
But life does not work like that. Insead we wrestle with all the freaked out voices in our brains who are not very helpful.
The scared voices are just trying to protect you from pain but they are the wrong voice to listen to.
The right one is the dispassionate one, it is being logical. The dispassionate voice is wanting the best for you and it has no fear.
Fear is irrational and no fear is rational.
that might sound counterintuitive but it is right on. Given common sence nothing horrible can happen that will kill you except Fear. and that is what we mostly go on.
What a laugh on us. So we do have nothing to fear but fear itself when it comes to planning what to do next.