Painting, for me, is true freedom. Its singular freedom. I can do what I want, when I want and how I want it done. Its freedom from the worries, thoughts and suggestions of others. It’s me alone with a blank canvas. Sound great?
Well it is, certain aspects of painting are anyway. There is the truly exhilarating feeling of standing in front of a giant, crisp white canvas. It just feels good.
It might be like, I’m not sure because I don’t have kids, standing and holding your newborn. A brand new life with so much potential. Of course you have immediate ideas of what it may become but you really never know until life begins. Until paint meets canvas.
The journey through the canvas to final painting, again for me because I know painters who would be disgusted with this, is a free flow of emotions, colors and thoughts. Sure when I begin a painting I have very clear ideas of what I want it to look like. That feeling lasts until the first mistake. After the first mistake is when you really start to develop a real relationship with the painting.
You either rework the mistake or continue on. But its really through the mistakes that the painting takes it on its character and builds memories. When I look back at my old paintings its the mistakes I see first. Its the mistakes I remember fondly. Its the mistakes that made me panic at one time and now make me laugh. Its the mistake of fathering a baby that you will ultimately love until you die. You never really know what to make of it until you step back away from the canvas and look at the life just passed, the finished painting. You can then assess the mistakes within the larger context of the its life and finality. You can assess the work within its full context.
The process of fighting and accepting mistakes is fun but so is that final step away. The excitement of not really knowing what you’ve done until the very end. Judging life not at the beginning, not at the mid point, but really at the very end. So recently, I’ve tried to bundle all of those feelings into one moment. I’m searching for a way of bundling all of those expectations, hopes and desires until the very end. I’m searching for a way to post-pone judgment until everything can be seen within its context. I’m looking for a spontaneous judgment that includes the mistakes, the strokes of genius and the bore in a simultaneous swoop of emotion.
The picture in this post is the final piece. This video is the moment when I could finally see what I had created. It was my attempt at concealing, hiding or burying the final product until the end. by watching the video you will see the painting for the first time. Like I did. It’s that moment, that first look at something new that I want to explore. What if anything do we feel on the unveiling? Does it differ from the process of creation? Is the final judgement the most important?
I now understand my father’s reaction on first seeing my newborn photo. The gestation period is long and full of hope and expectation. Your mind runs wildly with the possibilities of futures not yet viewed or lived. The before is the perpetual fountain of optimism. The after is well unknown. I peeled back the layers on my painting as I imagine my father must have stood in anticipation of seeing the first picture of his newborn son.
Similar to the day that the nurse showed my father the first photo of his newborn son. Similar to the feelings he must have had when he looked at that small blue face, full of errors and mistakes with eyes glued shut. Close the emotions of hearing the screams, whales and cries of desperation and newness. Similar to the disappointment of seeing the reality as opposed to expectation. Like him, when I stepped back to have my first look at this painting, I said to myself “I’m not buying that!”
So it goes. Life, love, expectations, hope and freedom mashed up and quashed into one joyous moment.