18 June 2022
Red Riding Hood
Like any creator knows, sometimes a work of art surprises its author by coming out unexpectantly for the better and leaves them surprised and a little delirious. I imagine young parents feeling that way when their sullen teenager ripens into a thoughtful, intellegent and sane young man or woman. But like childbirth and child rearing, that doesn’t mean that the work came easily or that it lacked all the little choices that make up the process of the piece.
I am not even sure I know what I mean by all that except that I am touching upon a place where one’s personal willpower or ego has been left on the bench over on the sidelines, it’s where the artist has been kidnapped or seized by the capricious but benevolent hand of a drunken thief sent by the Muses.
Often in this work, a sky can lead me astray and I’m quickly distracted like little Red Riding Hood on her way through the dark forest. But this night was a little different and the sky felt like the diffident girl at a dance, standoffish and aloof, as I approached her. She gave no sign of approval but I asked her to dance anyway and we did, and this picture was her.
It wasn’t laboured but it came up quickly and only took about fifteen minutes. But like the girl at the dance, the sky had been uncertain, ambiguous and even unfriendly at first. It was a leap of faith as it so often is with creativity and things of the heart. Somehow, I was sure I would find a path through it by sheer stubborn force of habit which I did in the end, for the picture came out as a surprise.
At the beach, I sometimes feel like an inbriated husband outside the front door without a key. It forces me to sneak around through the back window or any opening I can find. The other night I mixed a palette and proceeded with the confidence of a thief. And, what with so many recent rainy days I had really wanted to get out there by hook or by crook.
For me, and others I sure, I’ve discovered that I always seem to be most present when I’m most absent. It’s because when I am most completely engaged in something I really love doing, I’m elsewhere, or nowhere at all. It happens while playing tennis or the piano when they go well, but I always feel it most preciently while painting these days. Everyone has confirmed this wonderful space; writers, musicians, athletes, car mechanics, neurosurgeons, and even the stone masons in Venice, for it’s the empty space of absentminded-focus where this magic happens. Why didn’t I learn this in grammer school? I wouldn’t have wasted so much precious time.
But this marvellous state of quiet cannot happen all the time because painters must fail a lot, over and over, it seems. It’s the entrance fee for everyone who dares to live fully.
The Zen wise guys call this space the ‘Beginner Mind’, that ‘in between thought’ before one acts. The Ancient Greeks called it ‘The Muses’, the invisible angels who guide us, pushing us relentlessly and who allow us to accomplish the task at hand despite our human inclination for despair. The ‘Muses’ drive the motorcycles and we just get on for the ride I think.
I know that everyone has felt this from time to time, Thank God, we do feel it at times. (There! you see, I have used the G word after all,,,, after I had promised myself I wouldn’t go near it!)
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