Throwing caution to the wind, Open Sesame!

21 February 2021

Throwing caution to the wind, Open Sesame!

Evening Prayer Brunswick Heads, 18 February 2021 oil on canvas board, 30 X 25 cm 

This was one of three studies from last week, I jumped into them quickly, one right after the other without hesitation. The sky was full of clouds and a bit complicated to render but at the same time, the air was full of salt which gave the sky a mistiness that always appeals to me, and this quelled my initial fear of dread.

“First thought, best thought”, I remember thinking while mixing the palette. For this image I apparently let the white of the canvas become a cloud in the background that was still catching sunlight. It was an unusual (and lucky) solution to the problem of creating distance in the sky. 

On social media this one generated a lot of excitement which I liked but somehow I am not convinced of such excitement myself, because it makes me distrustful and full of doubt.

When I make pictures that appear more familiar-looking and more comfortable perhaps, studies that conform more to what ‘civilians’ are used to seeing out in the natural world, I begin to worry that I’ll lose any edge I think I might have. These kinds of images are usually more appreciated than my quirkier-looking pictures which can appear rough and raw even if I prefer them. And actually, this image here isn’t even really what I'm after. But in the end, I can only paint what the present moment dictates to me.

So, it's never up to me how they come out, although that may sound strange for a painter to admit. Sometimes they’re like this, but on other days, they’re like that, and that is the way it should be, at least for me, because I believe in the Painting Muses that seems to run my life when I'm out there at the beach. After all, there is nothing mechanical about the process that I could impose upon either the motif or the painting session. Like they say, it is what it is, and it's certainly not like changing a tire or doing a root canal.

“Open  Sesame”, is often my prayer when I come out to work at the beach. And as the sky opens up, so too does the motif facing me. And curiously, as I open up to each painting session, the session equally opens up to me in this reciprocal arrangement.

On really difficult afternoons, “Please let me in”, is more my refrain when all seems lost. But if I’m lucky, and the sky feels magnanimous even despite my delusional plea, I’ll find the key that gets into the clouds for a start. But naturally, I bring myself too, for better and worse, Sometimes I'm tired, maybe preoccupied, or the mind is just clouded. Maybe I feel bored or pessimistic even, yet remarkably, there is no issue big enough inside me that the sky cannot yank out of me for a session. A painting session, I've learned late in life, possesses its own uniquely sovereign form of locomotion, and I think it's better than therapy. But not yoga. 

Actually, I imagine it could be a little like one's notion of God because it’s a big sky and it's open to all believers. Like the artistic Sufi says: “When the painter calls out to God, she comes running.” On the other hand, a sinner like Paul Gauguin also once said: “One should just paint wildly and with great abandon”.