After being awakened too early by a jackhammer tearing into the foundation of my house the other day, I started a new painting. The piece soon shaped up to be the opposite of a masterpiece. Drippy layers of complimentary colors are the best part about it. Triple digit temperatures in the space where I paint informed the sloth-like brushwork evident throughout. The final work appears unfinished, but doing anything else to it would probably just make things worse.
There's something freeing in painting rubbish. It's mildly wasteful yet creatively satisfying. I've painted enough pictures over the years to not care if I ever create a stunning picture again. This latest piece is more drab than stunning, painted in such a way as to reveal no hint that I've spent a lifetime making art.
Non-art work this week was better than last week. My clients are all paid up. One of my jobs is still stressing me out. The world of freelance writing still contains more uncertainty than I'd prefer. But I love the actual work. I love fixing formatting errors and getting a good paragraph finalized. Plus, I'm halfway done writing novel number six, which is fun.
Construction continues in my house. Living in the attic, I barely notice the noise. I do however notice the impact on outdoor spaces. I spent years turning a trash-and-gravel yard into a nice place with several garden beds. When a cluster headache came on, I had a nice sitting area in which to ride it out. That ended when the property owners wrecked the space by adding an outbuilding and tearing out garden beds. Now, they want to take out two more beds of varietal plants and replace them with sod.
Having removed sod to make these beds several years ago, I find the idea of replacing them with sod to be perfectly insane. Sod is a desert. Sod does nothing to support bees and butterflies. If the property owners reinstall sod, they'll be responsible for making the world suck more. My opinion is irrelevant to the property owners. Nonetheless, since they clearly hate plants, I'm going to suggest replacing the garden beds with zen gardens instead of with sod. A zen garden is nicer than sod and exactly as good for the ecosystem.
Other changes in my household last fall forced me to get rid of half my art collection. My storage space for new art is extremely limited. If I were rational, I would refrain from painting more pictures until I had more space. But I'm not rational. I'm painting pictures that are extremely lame. And I'm probably just going to keep doing it.
It was worth the early wakeup call.
Does the state of mind have a big influence when painting a picture?
Painting sort of has its own state of mind. The question is whether I'm getting in the way of this or allowing it free expression.