Time again

At a party last Saturday, someone asked me what I’ve been doing, how my painting is going, how is it changing. I couldn’t really say. I’m too close to it. I told him to ask Dahlia, my talented, perceptive fifteen year old artist friend and student. It’s hard for me to talk about what I am doing, especially when I am in the middle of “it.” But Dahlia has a good eye; she will know how to describe “it.”

But if I had to describe “it” I would probably say something about how the under-painting, the images that I usually put down and cover up are now more visible, becoming more a part of the final painting, although still under the final resolution. So I the general feeling is more of openness.

Now that the paintings are in Denmark, I’m feeling like taking a mini-break. Not not painting, just not painting anything big, nothing ambitious, just small pieces, intimate paintings, ones that will make me feel quiet inside, not take as much physical effort. Yet even these are changing. And changing how I work on larger pieces. And that’s exciting. So really, there is no “break.” It feels more like a “lull”, a slowing down. A time to think, to wait and see.

This is a twenty-four hour seven days a week job, whether I’m in my studio or not, painting or not, working big or working small. I’m always thinking about it, feeling it, moving into and through it. In fact, I’ve been so focused on painting, I have found it hard to write anything much here. Or even to answer emails. Since January I’ve been painting almost every day with a focus so intense, it’s been hard to think about much else. So maybe it really is time for a mini-break, if I can do it.

Posted by leya at May 19, 2007 08:13 PM