I ALWAYS have my best thought when I'm driving from "here" to "there", so I love these chunks of time (in general, most of my "here to there time" is about 45 minutes long) but it also annoys the hell out of me. I wish I could be my own passenger so I could document these moving thoughts and ideas free of disruption. Not possible, though, so I'm always either scribbling blindly in a moleskine-wasting lots of paper, pulling over in some sketchy rest stop, or rushing to my destination, roaring through the door to unload all my stuff and get to my pens as fast as possible before the moment fades. It's never the same, though. Never the same as that initial, organic experience of the thoughts and vision combined with the blur of moving landscapes. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
This experience, however, is so perfectly mirrored in my actual painting process. When I'm painting I'm moving around like crazy-not just pacing around the studio, no-but movement when putting paint on canvas is wildly important to me. Without action, nothing happens for me, my mind becomes stagnant, too. This is why I prefer large canvas that's somewhere around my height and arm length: the physicality of moving my entire body up and down to make a single palette knife smear, reaching further than one arm can extend to blur a line...my mind comes alive and I'm pulled into my inner world when I'm able to incorporate my body's action and lines into my body of work. It's the energy...it's the energy that makes the paintings come to life. They become completely intuitive, response based, aggressive, joyful and reflective of my immediate psyche when presented with certain thoughts and emotions. Essentially, I'm able to hash through things in a direct way that's not always easy for my in my life outside my painting time.
So satisfying. Always. Like breathing again after not realizing I've been holding my breath.
This experience, however, is so perfectly mirrored in my actual painting process. When I'm painting I'm moving around like crazy-not just pacing around the studio, no-but movement when putting paint on canvas is wildly important to me. Without action, nothing happens for me, my mind becomes stagnant, too. This is why I prefer large canvas that's somewhere around my height and arm length: the physicality of moving my entire body up and down to make a single palette knife smear, reaching further than one arm can extend to blur a line...my mind comes alive and I'm pulled into my inner world when I'm able to incorporate my body's action and lines into my body of work. It's the energy...it's the energy that makes the paintings come to life. They become completely intuitive, response based, aggressive, joyful and reflective of my immediate psyche when presented with certain thoughts and emotions. Essentially, I'm able to hash through things in a direct way that's not always easy for my in my life outside my painting time.
So satisfying. Always. Like breathing again after not realizing I've been holding my breath.
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