workbench in my studio
Last month’s blog post I made it all sound so easy and inevitable—how I’d bring an earthiness or groundedness into my work. I just reread that post and it made me laugh. It’s so neat and linear and upbeat.
Right now upbeat is not the prevailing mood in my studio. I’ve got new paintings underway and it’s a struggle. I’m searching for something. I’m shaking up my colour choices in a way that sometimes feels meaningful and sometimes feels forced. I often feel a bit lost.
I look at the paintings on my studio wall and I have no idea how these pieces of wood and canvas become real paintings. I wonder if I know how to paint, why do I bother. It gets a bit bleak.
The time of year isn’t helping. The sun is pretty much gone by mid-afternoon and it’s completely dark before 5pm.
The struggle
I don’t want this to be a complain-y or downbeat post, but I do want to share that it isn’t all fun and games in the studio. The creative process can be messy—both externally and internally. It seems that a certain amount of confusion is inevitable. A new group of work doesn’t just happen, for me. It emerges slowly, sometimes painfully from a chaotic mess of uncertainty.
Artists are often advised to keep the struggle hidden. Some experts say nobody wants to know how the sausage is made. Collectors and art lovers just want to see finished work. Artists should be mysterious, the process hidden.
I don’t feel that revealing struggle or process takes anything away from the mystery. I’m in it up to my neck and it’s still pretty damn mysterious to me. If anything, the longer I’ve been painting, the more mysterious it gets.
Not knowing
Human beings aren’t great at not knowing. We like clarity, progress, reassurance, and repetition. But my creative self has other priorities. It’s experimental, driven by something I don’t fully understand, always seeking, rooting around in hidden places. I am never happier than when my creative self is in full flight. But before and after I am vulnerable to doubt.
Recently I had a lovely studio visit with an established artist with a long international track record. She has doubt too. It’s not something that goes away. As an artist you never “arrive” and find that doubt is banished.
I think of that wonderful documentary Gerhard Richter Painting (highly recommended). We see the elderly artist in his massive studio assessing his efforts. He has doubts, along with his museum shows and multi-million dollar sales.
It’s both reassuring and a bit unsettling.
Doubt is inevitable
After that studio visit I went to see the movie Conclave. It’s about the machinations around the election of a new pope. I’m fascinated by the arcane traditions around papal elections—and the timing of the matinee fit my schedule (I love matinees). I didn’t realize doubt was a big theme in the film.
I came away from the studio visit and the movie feeling that doubt was an inevitable companion to any significant project undertaken with sincerity. And that there was something necessary and even hopeful about doubt.
Without doubt or questioning we would all just be sheep doing what we’re told, hewing to the tried and true. Dull and maybe even dangerous.
Doubt as possibility
Doubt means I’m asking questions and it means I care. It means I’m trying something new, difficult. Certainty is the end of questions. There’s no opening there, no possibility.
Earlier this week, after a long and productive studio session I sat down in my studio chair and looked at my latest paintings in progress. I can see a new colour palette gradually emerging. The seed of a new group of paintings is there too.
Doubt hasn’t been banished, but what felt like flailing is beginning to coalesce into a direction. Something is beginning—like a little ember appearing in tangled kindling. A hopeful, delicate moment.
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