Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Doing What You Know vs. What You Don't Know

While out painting the other day, I got myself into a tangle. I had paint all over my board but no glimpse of a developing structure, not an inkling of how to move forward.

I had been in the mood to play, to try something different. I didn't want to repeat myself or take the safe way out. But, once stuck, all that optimism seemed like a bad idea.

It's a familiar feeling. It happens either just before I make a complete mess and go home empty handed, or when I break ground and come up with something new. When it works out, I feel releasedfrom the old way of doing things, from the fear of doing things differentlyand renewed. When it doesn't, like it did that day, it's frustrating. But I try to remember that it's worth it.

Van Gogh wrote "I'm always trying to do what I haven't done before, in order to learn how to do it." He's right, of course. You should always be pushing past your boundaries, even when you wind up completely lost. At those moments, remind yourself that you're exactly where you should be: up to your elbows in confusion. If you know what you're doing, it's because you've done it before. And that can result in a tepid, bored renderinga repetition, a replaying of old moves.

Which is not to say that any time you get out of a painting alivethat is, with a piece that somehow worksit's not something to be happy about. But if I'm just doing what I've done before, I'm usually not happy with the outcome. Not only did I fail to learn something, but my painting is missing a sense of experimentation. A teacher of mine once said we need to see the "struggle" in a painting. Patness doesn't make good art.

Turning yourself inside out every time you paint can be exhausting, of course, and unappealing. That's why it's so important to maintain a sense of play and lightheartedness. You need to not care. You may care, really, but at the crucial moments, you need to act as if you don't. Otherwise you won't have the strength and courage to risk ruining everything in order to make it better. Or to take it, and your skills, somewhere new.

No comments:

Post a Comment