July 28, 2009

For every single piece I turn out, there has been a period of angst preceding it, varying only by intensity or length of duration. Do other artists have to work this way, too? True enough, there is the one-off that seems to assemble itself: no pivotal mistakes, no brick walls, no loss of direction. But that phenomonon is so rare as to be half forgotten.



In the throes of it, I'm reminded of a couple of thoughts: One [paraphrasing], by Emily Dickinson, from one of her poems about pain ("Pain is a world of its own," meaning that one in the grip of pain cannot even remember what it was like not to be, it is so all-encompassing), and the other a book by Bayles and Orland entitled, Art and Fear. The latter does a fair job telling what is wrong with us as artists and what we need to do about it if we're going to live our lives making art.

The turkey inches slowly forward, though I have been messing around with avoidance behavior by reconditioning brushes and cleaning screens and windows. This afternoon I'm back at the gallery for three hours, and then I'm going to really plunge into finishing this would-be painting.

I promise.

PW