Studio time, at last!

So, I was finally at last (with great enthusiasm!) able to get into my studio this morning to work. The place had been cleaned up for last weekend’s Studio Rally. And there were no workmen around today! With my paintings to be wrapped on Wednesday, picked up on Thursday, of course, today I decided to work (extensively) on one of the large pieces in the exhibit. The large blue painting that has been a struggle from the beginning. I’ve already photographed it, thinking it was finished, but never felt completely comfortable with it. It worked but didn’t feel right to me. It just felt too busy. I’m happy with it now, I think. I’ll know tomorrow when I look at it again. And I am grateful to the heat gun I recently discovered as a way to get the paintings to dry. (I use oil paint sticks and the heat helps set the wax in them.)

The other day R. was also saying artists (who are successful, showing and selling) like to talk about themselves, their work. It’s more of a public obsession for them. They want to show their work and they want to talk about it. It took me a long time to want to talk about my painting. But I’ve learned it is important. Not everyone can look at a painting and be satisfied with just looking/feeling/sensing. And in a way it does help me to put it all in words, have a point of view, a perspective on what I am doing. And not only the “what” of it but also they “why.” It is, after all, a non-essential service by conventional standards. But it’s one I wouldn’t want to do without.