Sugar

Magnolia

This evening in my new studio (monoprint)

Apples

Ptolemy

Selfie

Unlearning

As it turns out, even knowing how to break free of contours is very difficult. 

Some weeks ago, I had a studio visit from a fellow artist I greatly respect. She glanced wordlessly over a wall full of drawings until her gaze fell on a funny little mono-print I'd made. It's one of those I put up because I liked, but wasn't sure why. Everyone else who has seen it has said, what's that?

I say, oh, it's an elephant marionette, collapsed on the floor. Erm... that's the trunk, see?

The Fellow Artist I Greatly Respect didn't care what it was. She batted away my explanation, saying that it didn't matter what it was, it was the feeling that mattered, and she desperately wanted the drawing.

We arranged a swap.

But I wanted to just give it to her, because her gift had already settled over me like soft rain or a beautiful memory.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It's the feeling that matters.

When did I forget this? Slowly, slowly, form has overcome feeling, and even the word 'feeling' has become a mumbled apology. Feeling is not what matters. Ideas matter. Currency matters.

The words of the Fellow Artist effected a rushing release in my heart and mind.

That swelling yearning for a shift in my practice suddenly burst its banks, and it is this happening that has given me the energy with which I'm now working.

I returned to the little vase, yesterday. It all seemed terribly hard. Just how do I bypass the perimeters of the perceived object without pretension, without the affectation of naïvete? I had already experienced this struggle with the little bamboo boat: of what value is it to ignore the edge I can see perfectly well? I tried, anyway, and found that, while the drawing was not exactly successful, it still had the feeling and luminosity of the 'tighter' drawing, and possibly more purely - at any rate, I could see the potential, there.

So, with the vase, I tried again. Again, there is this problem of bypassing a particular ability I have in pursuit of another. All sorts of feelings of frustration and impatience arise. How does one begin, and where does one stop, when similitude isn't the object? 

I suppose the secret lies in attuning myself to feeling, and establishing a new standard for myself. It may mean stopping at a point where the image is still inchoate. It's going to be a difficult and interesting pursuit.

Here's where I stopped yesterday's drawing. It will do for now. I will get better.