For the past few weeks I’ve been torturing myself with thoughts—am I repeating myself, am I getting the painting that I want, what painting do I want, does the work look as spontaneous as the small black and white pieces I did, etc. etc. etc. On and on and on. Yet. I continue to go into my studio, change my clothes (and shoes), put on my mask, and paint. I don’t think I have completed a painting in weeks, but I am coming close, maybe.
My niece, who plays in the Rome Opera Orchestra, wrote me recently, after reading my post on being a woman artist. I had said I thought artists are all working with a mind of play. That is what crosses the sexual barriers. She replied:
I have to remember to enjoy the play in the playing. It is easier for me when I am teaching small children because everything they do is play. And so we play with music and violin and sound but it is always play for them. It is harder for me when I am at the opera, but I do enjoy the sounds and that I make together with my wonderful colleagues. It is just hard to keep the spontaneity and joy. I wish I had time for more of my own play/playing—that is my first relationship to it all and I suppose, to myself. In which case, necessary.
Now I have to remember that the major relationship to my work is with myself. I do this, painting, because I have to. As I told a friend recently, it’s not that I can’t do anything else, it’s just that I can’t do anything else. This is what I do. Paint. And the paintings teach me, help me grow and learn about things, nonverbal things, I might never come up against without this play that I do. So ultimately, there is no right way to paint, as long as I continue to paint. And eventually we will see what happens.