I woke up at 4:30AM. I needed to paint — immediately.
I’m learning to follow these types of urges. Not just to hear them, but — and this is the important part — respond. I set up my camera and hit record. An hour and a half, a pot of coffee and 11 paintings later, I stopped. And then I watched the video sped up 2000%.
What I see here is the battle of creating. You make a gesture that is so beautiful. But then you spill paint on it — shit — and have to fix it. You can’t go back. You can never go back. You grab a color just because. The tangerine sets the piece on fire. Yes. 10 moves later and it’s all brown. No. You start over. But you’re never starting over. You’re the greatest painter there ever was. You rotate and shuffle the order of things. You’re mediocre. You’re kidding yourself. You can’t do this. You make another mistake. You try to ignore it. But then it starts to work. You’re brilliant. A shape, a feeling, a rhythm emerges. You didn’t even mean for it to be there. But now it’s yours. And you take it. All of it. And you layer it and you destroy it and one piece is done — just like that you know — and another piece has 20 paintings underneath it. It’s never done. You see globs of oil from painting number 3 hidden underneath spray paint that you decided was a good idea but wasn’t on painting number 5. A line emerges through the thin wash from a previous layer and you follow it now, resurrecting a moment, a drip, a fossil of how far the piece has come. When will this painting be finished? Not knowing is something you’ve gotten used to by now.
And then the alarm went off and it was time to go to work. So I stopped. I stood back. And realized that I couldn’t see any of it. Nothing. Sort of like trying to look at a billboard with your nose against it. You can’t even perceive of what you’ve done.
But what I can see is the battle. The struggle. The deathly duel. The dance. The gifts. The release. The stops and starts. The fits of doubt. The sublime beauty of something that is absolutely perfect.
No, making things isn’t easy. Don’t be fooled. It’s not like eating dessert first. It’s effort. Daily practice. And if you’re fortunate enough to have an itch, scratch it. No laying in your bed thinking about making. Or talking to your friend about what you’d like to create. No, you’ve thought that thought ten thousand times. And it’s time to rip off the covers and get out of bed, even if it’s 4:30AM on a Thursday.
[Thanks to Maura McGovern for introducing me to Twyla Tharp and the power of the creative journey.]
Get up and make something.
