the turning away

untitled sketchbook entry, June 2014, Rico

I've been on hiatus from the studio.  My process (generally) is that I will be in the studio and something will occur to me; something brand new or unexpected.  I will get this information down quickly in some fashion: I'll write about it, lay down some drawings, or even dive right in to painting it.  If it is very good, that is to say if I feel both excited and terribly unsure, I will then walk away.

If after a few weeks of ignoring it I find I cannot, I then embrace it and make it happen.  So painting, working, sometimes happens while I'm doing other things; things seemingly unrelated to painting.  In this case, the introduction of motif into this work struck me through accidentally stepping on my sketchbook.  I wear Converse all stars almost exclusively in the studio and the print from the sole was so arresting on the sketch.  It got me to thinking about pattern and juxtaposition and repetition.  Order, and chaos.

Beyond ideas there is the doing.  One has to make the ideas actually happen and this requires technical planning and practical considerations.  (Stuff we creative types often consider quite boring).  Yet there is tremendous satisfaction in addressing the practical and the technical when one finally drafts them in service to the idea, and that idea is then executed.

I guess I'm saying that sometimes I have to walk away for a time in order to see.  I have to turn away so that I can rediscover.   Painting is serious work.  But it is equally serious play.  It has to be fun, or at least satisfying on a some visceral level.  Paintings need to surprise me in the studio.

So I'm back in it.  I need life to ebb away for a time and embrace the practice.  When I work I am free and when I stay away from the art too long I begin to come undone.

I experienced a personal setback this week.  While these generally don't bother me, I feel as though in this case I was grossly underestimated as a person.  Part of it was the medium through which the interaction happened, and part of it was, I think, my vulnerability at this moment in life.  I couldn't get the people on the other side of the interaction to see me and ultimately I count that as a failure on my part.  I'm going through a great deal personally and look forward to announcing something next week and getting it off my chest.

Until then, the studio and the work.