Start a big foolish project

Every painting is a failure

While I’m not an angsty tortured artist who destroys all their work, it is true that I’m never satisfied.

I don’t experience this as a negative. My dissatisfaction actually excites me. It’s my fuel, the engine that drives me forward.

I believe in my work

Now, I want to be clear that the paintings I take to my gallery or present in a show are pieces I stand behind. Absolutely. I’m excited about them and I can’t wait to show them to you. I love looking at them and I honestly think they’d look fabulous in your house.

But, there’s always more to come. And that’s exciting. What worked, what didn’t, and how could these paintings become even better?

My newest painting Green Light, 40 × 36″, acrylic on canvas

A huge, foolish project

“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.” ―Rumi

A mentor brought that quote to our writing group one morning. I didn’t have my project then, but I never forgot that quote or the feeling it gave me.

Well, I have one now. Painting in general is the project, or maybe more broadly art—but I do have a specific goal or aim.

I want to paint the underlying unity of things. I want to paint those moments where all the disparate parts become fused—that incredible experience I sometimes have in nature of both perceiving the unity behind all the parts while at the same time feeling myself at one with what I am seeing and experiencing. (I’ve written about this before, I know. Clearly it’s on mind a lot.)

In those moments I have no sense of my individuality—I am part of what I see. I want to create paintings that reflect that, that are that—and feel so alive they might move or change in front of you. It’s a bit grandiose, I know, but if I’m honest, that’s what I want (see “huge, foolish”; also see “alive + true”).

So far I’d say I’m scraping the surface, but I have a direction and sense of motion. I need more time, more work, more learning. One thing about big projects is that they take a long time. There will be missteps, cul de sacs, as well as small victories, little tastes of what might be.

Maybe I’ll never get there. But I’m getting warmer and that’s enough to keep me going.

detail from a new painting, Green Light