Studio Notes

How much of art making is based on small, accumulative activities?

Maybe all of it. It’s so pleasurable to surrender to that activity and to shelve all doubts regarding the validity of that activity. Today I began to sew pieces of canvas together for another painting surface. I have several works in progress and have been adding more to them daily. Yesterday I pulled out one of the last works I began in Bowling Green. This was traumatic on several levels. Our economic disaster means I left by beloved BG studio under unpleasant circumstances. So the old work carries with it a sense of shame and failure. But I was also concerned with my desire to work on it. The canvas is 84” square- well outside of the size boundary I have set and am trying to crack.

I love the revelations and surprising results my working process fosters. I hate the uncertainty that not having a clear path generates. Two sides of the same coin. (I’m very fond of analogy…) Yesterday I decided to allow myself to work on the large canvas. On a good day I can really embrace that uncertainty and trust myself to be on a good path. This isn’t really that much of a stretch because even bad paths result in good work eventually. There may also be evidence that bad paths more quickly result in good work-ha. Since I grappled with the big existential questions yesterday (I love exaggeration!!!) today I was free to just work.