When you can't do anymore? Actually when my daughter came home the day I painted it she said, "Don't you dare do another thing to it - it's my favourite!" But, then, she's so sweet... (mostly, that is -:). However, I'm not sure I don't like the earlier incarnations of this piece better... the two in the middle in particular, but then I remind myself that they were soaking wet and when dry would be much faded in colour and vibrancy.
Don't we stop when we can't think of anything more 'to fix'? I don't know about you, but most of my art is trying to save 'disasters,' which makes it a very adrenaline thing. Not peaceful at all. My whole life is thrown on the line each time. When it's done, it's such a relief.
I live in acute embarrassment over my work- it's so on the edge of collapse into disparatenesses that when it works I feel like a relieved doctor who's sent someone stitched but alive into the world.
Is that fair to say? Or is it my mood this morning? The Willow Women piece got accidentally splattered with coffee and so I poured water all over it and painted it last night and it's not worked, and I can clearly see that in the morning light. Which also had something to do with my mental apparatus last night. Not being in the meditative moment. Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. But it wasn't meant to be a water drawing, didn't take kindly to being immersed. I'm thinking of covering it in spider webs of lines to see if that might resuscitate it. Short of blasting it with volts of cardio-electricity, what can I do? There's the morgue of the paper recycling bin. Or perhaps I could cut it up, organ-transplant-like, and collage it into something else.
Share your process with finishing pieces?
"Enfolded Luminosity" Series: Pulsing Hea(r)t, the eye of Ra, 25.5cm x 31 cm or 10" x 12 1/2", india ink, watercolour pencil on paper, 2006
I finished it this morning quickly- thank goodness for white pencil spiderweb lines. And I've forgotten the difficulties, not understanding how I could ever have thought "stitched," odd how that is...
In writing, I often go through an acccordionlike process during revision: I add, then I take out, then I add, then I take out, and so on. Sometimes both the expansions and contractions gradually get smaller, and by keeping going, I eventually stop.
ReplyDeleteMy process is different from yours, Brenda, in that I can keep drafts if I want. But it's all the same process in the end, perhaps: tapping in and pouring out, watching where it goes, a whole lot of listening and noticing to find my way, seeing how it looks at each step along the way, and following the leads. And then later, paring, tightening, checking, reading aloud, all the editor's hat stuff. (Except that latter process is very limited by time for what I post on my blog.)
ReplyDeleteThese days I mostly use PSP rather than 'real' media. And I usually go one step too far. I don't know when to stop. Then, even if I have saved a good version, I never want to go back to it again. I have a folder full of unfinished work that went too far. A bit like painting with a messy palette when the colours run and are brown around the edges and my brush tips a little of that on the painting and oh fuck! I could fix it but somehow the joy has gone out of it The only time I always finished things was when I was painting t-shirts. Each one was money (good money) and often pre-ordered and it was my only source of income, so I finished them.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read 'white spiderweb' I thought 'stretch marks' :)
Petra/SavonDuJour
I love your image of the accordian, Richard, the expansions and contractions. And there does come a point where it feels "right," as complete or finished as it can be. And you're right, MB, with writing there is an option to go back to an earlier draft that working with paint doesn't allow. But there's still a moment when, this is it, I can't do any more, I like what's here. My process for writing is different to painting, in that revisions are possible. But with both what counts the most is my original idea and my state of consciousness- so the seed, what I'm sketching or writing, and the clarity of my mind when I'm working. It's finally finished when it 'sings.' It holds together aesthetically for me, and has reference points outside, or expands beyond the page.
ReplyDeletePetra, we've been discussing our blocks with our art on and off for well over a year now, and the terrifying leap at the beginning, yes, and, oh, it's hard sometimes, and then knowing when to stop. Because too much can ruin that moment when it was poetry, when it sang. I like the pieces you are currently posting. And I would love to see some images of the t-shirts; one for Lady Diana, huh. And some of them were ripped off, weren't they. It's a journey we're on...
MB, I want to ask about singing. There's practicing, yes; but in performance, no going back. How do you make art with your voice, maintaining not too little or too much...
And Richard, since reading about your years studying Tai Chi, and your recent black belt, I have not been able to shake the image of you writing the way you do Tai Chi. A martial arts master wielding words in motion through the air...
Yes, you are right, there's a moment when it "feels right." When it feels balanced with appropriate flow, unblocked, tight, when it moves gracefully and efficiently where it needs to go... with love. That's what it is for me.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly what you are asking me about singing. Can you clarify?
You express the sense of completion of a poem beautifully, MB. And my question was really on performing: how is it different to writing? Because they're both acts that create art.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, that's always such a big question: when to stop! And when not to stop (in art as in life).
ReplyDeleteOf the above stages of your image, my favorite is the sepia one (top right). It has more power than the rather too pretty colored versions. Maybe, just as an exercise in "less is more" , you could try setting yourself some limits and working only within those limits for long enough to see where it leads you. For example: using only black and one other color, with a brush of a certain size, on sheets of paper of a certain size, and setting the alarm clock to limit the time you can spend on each drawing. Stopping exactly when the bell goes. Then starting another one, and another one. Always within those limits. Obviously you can choose your limits, I'm just suggesting. But, based on my own experience (and God knows I have problems choosing!) it is very helpful to sometimes be creatively strict with one's self and formulate some rules that can reveal what it is that we can do best.
Natalie, it's wonderful to have to you drop by...
ReplyDeleteAh, art. My situation at present is most austere. Living in a basement apartment with my daughter (it's large enough & there's enough light), with my whole household in storage, including all my art supplies. There isn't enough room to paint here anyway (unless I use the laundry room, but the landlord's concerned about fumes, sigh). So the sepia piece would be closer to what I would be doing if I had space and supplies. At this point, I'm not stopping any inclinations to explore paper and watercolour pencils (though they certainly have their limitations). It's good to be doing something, and often I'm surprised at what emerges. The camera is actually good at capturing previous versions, isn't it. And then those can be printed. Hmmn, this turns the timeline of creating art into something approaching writing...
Anway, that upper left sepia one is only a digital image. It was under a layer of water. By the time I'd taken the photo, uploaded it, posted it, the water had created a river down the middle where all the india ink had collected. It wouldn't have dried into anything particularly interesting.
Since painting is as much a meditation as it is a producing of 'something' -form, images- I don't know about setting external limits... but it does sound like fun, a 'timed meditation,' alarms, ways to limit the going-over-the-edge and staying just this side of it, where the tension is.
Being "creatively strict with one's self and formulating rules that can reveal what it is that we can do best"... is incredible advice applied to any aspect of life. My life right now offers more contraints than I am comfortable with though, and it's interesting seeing what's emerging from such limits. Overproduction? Going too far? Oh ho. Sometimes, Natalie, just let's. Seriously, though, I did save a very high resolution of that sepaia one, and intend to make posters of it at some point...
Oh, I see. Yes, performing is very different for me from writing. I used to be very concerned with perfection and being liked. To the point that I'd be running to the bathroom all day before a performance. Then I had an epiphany during one performance and since then, I understand that I perform best when my motivation is connection and love. All the technical stuff goes on behind the scenes, prior, but once I'm on stage I'm thinking connection and love. It's kind of an innie-outie balance, because the connection and love has to be with myself, as well as reaching out to listeners. But it's not only the best motivation to achieve the best performance, it's also my core reason for performing in the first place. Like any other situation, I can't expect or rely on it, but stay open to it and am gratefully surprised when it blossoms into something. Staying open and loose, allow a bit of roughness here and there to creep in. I theorize that it not only frees me up to express and interpret, it frees the listener up to relate. Another aspect is a lot like acting, trying to make the experience of singing the same song over again new and fresh for myself each time. Re-experiencing the material. There really are so many things... because I perform with others, there's also the interaction with them. I believe that's very important. It's like a dance, a shared experience, a coordinated effort, a conversation. The connection and love happens there, too. Writing, by contrast, is very solitary in most ways, until I share it.
ReplyDeleteOh, how could I not have mentioned PLAYING!! Fun! Having fun... For me, that's there in all of this creating, in some form.
ReplyDeletemb, how liberating to openly and fully love the world, people through singing...
ReplyDeleteI do understand. I do my best work when what I am doing is an act of love.
About the only aim I have is to move, or unfold, however it may be, towards the profoundly intimate, personal, loving, trusting.
But I am a recluse, a quiet person. So I do it in my little world, with my family, friends. And on the dance floor with strangers.
When I began teaching yoga I discovered how much I love people, and it was an awakening, and there is sensitivity in that understanding.
It seems as if you are already there, way past me, in understanding this beauty, the full heart, just giving through love and connection.
I'm going to fly through the rest of the day, after your beautiful comment. Thank you.
I can identify with Richard's accordion. With me it's also a case of depth perception -- when I'm not where I want to be I feel as though I'm just pushing my characters around on the page. I'm not "in the zone" -- there's a level that I'm missing. When I'm in the right place I'm a channel -- watching a movie in my head and recording what I see and hear, tweaking the language as I go along. At those times the writing flows, and usually the changes I make are more nitpicky than anything else, phrase tightening and the like. Workshopping helps because then I see the text through other people's eyes and perceptions, and what seems obvious to me might not be so clear-cut to someone else.
ReplyDeletee_journies, I love how you describe when writing 'flows,' yes, it's like that, and yes, it holds together, generally with very little editing, and then only tiny things, removing excesses. I've never tried taking my work to workshops, but have been looking for a local writer's group since arriving here. Feedback is crucial, and blogs do help, don't they. Thanks for dropping by...
ReplyDelete