I am currently working on a painting that isn’t working for me. This can be a frustrating experience, and it is doubly complicated in this instance because I am painting on a canvas that I have painted over because I despaired of the last piece done there. I wonder if the canvas is cursed.
I recall, when I took some drawing classes many years ago at a small studio, the teacher telling us about the need to be free to throw away your work sometimes. I also recently read a comment by an editor speaking of the need for authors to “kill your darlings” sometimes. These are important reminders, I think. But I have also had experiences where I have painted myself into a corner and then in desperation have pulled off a bit out a coup. Am I there with this painting?
Usually, but not always, I paint from a photograph, or perhaps a landscape en plain air. This time I began with a sketch pulled out of the air: a portrait of an older man. The image isn’t a self-portrait, but since the face I know best is my own, bits and pieces of the image are autobiographical. But the eyes are too large to be mine, and the shape of the face isn’t quite me. The man on the canvas isn’t as old as the man in my mind.
I have been taking photos of the image after each session spent with it. It is telling to look at the development of these. I see an advance, but I have hit a bit of a roadblock. The other day I pulled out a self-portrait I did of an 8 year old me to see what I liked about it. I was especially happy with the shading and so with the last painting session worked on that, but it didn’t really improve the painting. Perhaps I need to attend to the image itself, or themselves, since I now have an image in my mind and one on the canvas. Sometimes they speak to me with cross-purposes.
I recall hearing about sculptors’ goal of finding the form in the rock and simply chipping away the excess. While the letter of that trope doesn’t transfer from sculpture to painting, the spirit of it might, I think. How can I learn from the canvas? What is it calling me to produce? Maybe I need to reframe my task. Perhaps I need to give myself the freedom to let my darling be what it will be, and put it on the shelf for a time, while I move onto another attempt at self-expression. Yet, I feel drawn to it, and experience that lovely suspension of time while working on it. It is healing, in a way, even while frustrating.
In this time of Covid, at the beginning of another year – full of its own uncertainty – I am mindful of the potential of art to keep us sane, and to succour our many sorrows. But it will only do that if we are able to silence counter-to -gospel voices in our heads telling us that because we fail we are failures. Spending some time in quiet goes quite a long way toward silencing such voices. Silence also allows us to see with that other eye, the inner one that sees beyond matter and form in form and matter both.
We are at the precipice of a new year, dear readers. My hope for you is deep poetry, transcending art, and the kind of silence you need in order to hear what you need. This Voice lead us further in faith and deeper in love. Blessings to you in 2022.