Sometimes it is quite hard to tell if a painting is finished, even if or probably especially if it’s your own painting. And it’s difficult even if or possibly especially if you love the painting already.
The painting above is a case in point. I do really love it. I love the movement and the suggestion of a giant gathering of birds filling the sky. But I have the nagging feeling that it needs something. Some of the more woowoo teachers will say the painting will tell you what it needs, if you pay attention. What am I missing? you might ask the painting. Or What are you, oh painting, missing? What do you need? What do you want me to do? I like to think of myself as woowoo-ish but I have my limits and I haven’t had much luck chatting with my paintings.
Instead, I stare and I think. Thinking, some say, stifles the making of art.
What do I need at any given moment? The answer to that question can also be mysterious. Today I really needed to have some fun at pickleball in that specifically pickleball way, e.g. laughing, crying out Aiyiyi!! when I’ve hit the ball way out, going full-on after the ball, and making some great or great-ish shots. That was clear to me. I did go and I did play but I did not get what I needed, and now I’ve come home to stare at that painting off and on all day. How can I be expected to give it what it needs when meeting my own needs is so elusive?
Life can be challenging.
I do not actually stare at paintings for long periods of time. I do talk to my dogs all day long. I hug certain trees and whisper I love you to one in particular. I call out hello and wave to the moon. I quietly say Eye on the ball at pickleball to myself ten hundred times a day. So maybe having a heart-to-heart with a painting isn’t really that far behind. I will report back if there are any developments.
What about you? Where do you stand on woowoo? Do you commune with any so-called inanimate objects? Do they talk back to you?
“Painting is complete as a distraction. I know of nothing which, without exhausting the body, more entirely absorbs the mind.” ― Winston S. Churchill, Painting As a Pastime
“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” ― Vincent Willem van Gogh
“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary.” ― Pablo Picasso
If you’re looking for my cards or art, you’ll find all of that on my website. If you enjoy these letters, feel free to forward this one to anyone you think might like it. And if someone forwarded this one to you, you can sign up here to receive the letters right in your Inbox. Finally, you’ll find past letters and poems here.
Thanks for listening,
Kay
P.S. MerryThoughts is the name of my first book, out of print at the moment. The word is a British one, referring both to a wishbone and to the ritual of breaking the wishbone with the intention of either having a wish granted or being the one who marries first, thus the “merry thoughts.”