Limited Supplies

The hot, sticky night left me short of time this morning, my body feeling sluggish and unmotivated to spring out of bed, refresh myself in the shower and dash down the road to the studio to pick up my painting supplies for this morning's yoga class. Instead, I grabbed a small tin of paints, a handful of tiny scraps of watercolor paper, a couple of brushes, a few paper towels and a plastic cup for water.

Hot nights generally result in low attendance to the early morning class. Quite a few of the regulars didn't show up. A perfect situation to step out of the "norm".

I found myself in a different state of mind, tuning into the space around the figure and allowing it to merge with the figure, blurring the boundaries of inner and outer energy. As I look at the resulting paintings, poetry comes to mind.

Underpaintings

Several years ago I saw a fairly large painting in a gallery window. The glow of the colors amazed me. As I squinted to read the small card beside the painting I was shocked to discover that I was viewing a work of art done in colored pencil.

The next day I unearthed my supply of colored pencils from the cobwebbed corner where I store supplies that do not vibrate with my internal frequencies. I was determined to breathe life into my pile of colored sticks. It was at that point that I decided to begin a more careful study of 'color'.

My success was limited at best. After executing (the perfect word) two 5" square pieces I returned the lifeless colored pencils to the cobwebbed corner.

A month ago I came across a book, "Masterful Color" by Arlene Steinberg. I was hooked by the cover before I read the small print " vibrant colored pencil paintings layer by layer". Though I knew well the practice of underpaintings, I had never used the method myself. Having started as a plein aire painter, underpaintings never found their way into my life.

A year or two ago I decided that I wanted to make a giant leap to a new level of painting. In order to do so, I knew I would have to break out of my habits, perhaps all of them. My ultimate goal was to create color in my paintings that made my heart sing rather than sleep. I had decided to try my hand at underpaintings a short time before I ran across Arlene Steinberg's book. She presents the idea of creating an underpainting using the complement of the final desired color. Though I thought this a bit absurd at first, the idea began to make sense to me, especially in light of the subtractive color theory I have been using lately with far better results than the additive color theory I've practiced for thirty years.

Yesterday I painted three underpaintings, illustrated here. I will post them again as they progress into full color paintings. I'm anxious to see the difference between painting the greens of the trees over the yellow-orange underpainting and the red-orange underpainting. These three paintings are all oil paintings. I've accepted the fact that colored pencils block the flow of my creative energy.

Raising Funds for the Arts - Roxey Ballet - Zakar Art

On May 10, 2008 a fabulous evening of live Jazz, delicious food and Zakar Art was hosted to raise funds for the Roxey Ballet. Four years have passed since I began creating Zakar Art, capturing the moment of movement to live music.

The intent of Zakar Art is to awaken the public awareness of creativity and the interaction between music, movement and the expression of that energy through the visual arts. I envisioned fund-raising events as an excellent venue for Zakar Art. Some visions take time to manifest. The May 10th event marks the third successful Zakar event of 2008. I will continue to raise funds for the ballet company by painting during the summer workshop sessions and during the dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker in November.

On May 22, 2008 I will paint during the annual New Jersey Arts Collaborative Performance at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, NJ to raise funds for the Butterfly Project. The paintings will be posted on Etsy.com and 50% of the sales will be contributed to benefit Cancer Research.

For many years I have struggled with the question of how I contribute to society and to the universe. The joy of painting and drawing, living the life of an artist, can feel rather indulgent at times in spite of the constant struggle to make ends meet and to purchase supplies in order to continue painting. Zakar Art not only keeps my eye fresh, my body loose and my spirit nourished, it now enables me to contribute to the survival and continuation of the arts.

On the Road

Tom and I recently returned from a road trip to Florida. Tom did all the driving, leaving me to explore the landscape and to reflect on the theme of my upcoming exhibition in October, Unveiled. Sketching in the car was limited to avoid motion sickness. New Jersey to Florida is far too long a drive to chance queasiness.

Over the last six months, still-life and landscape have nudged their way back into the list of subjects I am inspired to paint. The challenge has been to incorporate them into my work in a way that will expand and enhance my language of expression rather than send me on a totally new path. My goal is to express motion through space in still-life and landscape as I do with figures and orbs.

By the time we returned to New Jersey I had renamed the exhibition Unveiled - exploring the elements of art. The diversity of the subject matter will be united by the techniques. I will include preliminary sketches and paintings that will clearly illustrate the strengths of each element and how they can either contribute to or detract from the sense of movement in a painting.

Fling A Fox

At this morning's Ashtanga Class I challenged myself to working more slowly and combining more than one posture on each painting. Instead of being totally focused and present in the moment of the movement I found myself uncomfortably slipping out of the state in which the pen and paint flow freely as an extension of experience rather than the result of thought.

A half hour passed and I found myself feeling as I did fifteen years ago when I assisted Michael in the retraining of his brain. Every morning and every evening we spent at least half an hour doing vision exercises that involved eye hand motor coordination while simultaneously keeping the brain busy with a slightly different activity. Each time I added a figure to my painting I had to make left-brain decisions such as where to place the next figure; what size to make the figure; what colors to use on the figure. I felt myself stiffen as I dipped the pen into the ink. After a deep breathe I relaxed and added the figure. The cycle began again with the next figure.

My routine is to pile the paintings up and not look at them again until the evening. Because I had battled back and forth between the two sides of my brain, I felt that the resulting paintings would be of a more serious nature, less light-hearted and free-spirited.

As I looked again at the painting illustrated above, I was reminded of how blinded I am by the previous experiences in my life. I can't look at the painting with any sort of objective point of view because it reminds me of an extremely absurd painting I did more than thirty years ago, an illustration for the letter 'F' in an alphabet book. The text for the illustration was "Fling a Fox". I think it is the line of movement created by the two largest figures in the yoga painting that bring to mind the flinging of the fox.

All of the illustrations for the alphabet book may be viewed at: Alphabet Book
Click on each image to see the text that goes along with the illustrations. I am amused by the fact that the illustrations were, and are, considered rather bizarre. I don't think of them as any more bizarre than the text.

Time Crunch

Recently my schedule has had to change. My time for painting has been cut drastically. I made a choice not to accept this change with resentment, but to take advantage of the forced opportunity to make the most of my creative time.

This past winter I began small studies, both watercolor and oil, in order to form new patterns for using color and for toning my drawing skills. I have not worked from reality for several years.

While at the grocery store, I gazed in awe at the pile of Bartlett pears. I questioned why they inspired me so much more than the Anjou pears I had painting the week before. The shape is relatively the same, yet not at all the same. The slight bulges and irregularities of the Bartlett acted on my inspiration as do the lines and movements of the human figure. The shapes begin the movement and take me into that space where anything can happen and everything does happen.

At that point I abandoned my cart and lost myself testing my emotional monitor with every fruit and vegetable on display. With so little time to paint, I see no need to draw or paint anything that does not make my monitor soar. There is no shortage of shapes that make me catch my breathe. There is also no shortage of shapes that leave me in the dark. There's too little time for me to waste any of it painting in the dark.

Rejected Treasures

"Sorry, we don't rent hats. We are 'Anything But Costumes'."

The tone of voice on the other end of the line turns angry.... "I didn't think you meant that literally!" Click..... the angry voice becomes silent and we return to our work. It amazes us how many people call us looking to rent costumes. Perhaps if Linda had named her company "Anything But Props" people wouldn't be confused and angry when we tell them we rent props, not costumes.

At the end of their project, film crews are notorious for unloading all their left-overs along with our props, hoping we will save them a trip to the dump. Sometime we get lucky and fill more of our weight-burdened shelves with unique clocks, hideous lamps, outrageous lamp shades, shag rugs, broken teapots and other odds and ends that set designers from the extended tri-state area adore and pay good money to rent.

Rarely does something come along that Linda rejects. Fortunately for me, these loom reeds fell into the abyss of the unrentable and ended up in my car. Now they hang on the wall of my studio tempting me and teasing me to abandon the miserable job of framing the five pastels I have completed for the upcoming annual "Spring in Bloom" exhibit at Solaris Gallery in Califon.

It's a real toss up between the loom reeds and the wooden bowl & billiard ball. I can feel the series of pencil drawing and paintings already beginning the trek toward manifestation.

I'm sad that the prop shop must find a new home. I love the smell of the barns and the way the light plays on the buildings. I love the sound of our footsteps on the wooden floors. It's frightfully cold in the winter and blisteringly hot in the summer. We haven't any running water, unless you count the constant leaking of the roof. I would rather be in touch with the weather, both foul and fair, than to be inside of a windowless warehouse all day long, oblivious to the changes of the light, the sounds and the smells of the day. I will adapt, as I always do.

Regardless of the location, the props will continue to inspire me. Props are used to create illusions, to define character, location and time. Last week a press back chair was brought back to us after having been repaired. The man who had repaired the chair, one of a set of two, thought he would do us a favor by giving it a fresh coat of paint. He had no idea that the fresh coat of paint has now made a chair that was rented constantly into one that will hardly rent at all. Its mate will continue to rent because it still shows its character and its history. I am reminded that the wrinkles in my face and the silver streaks in my hair define more clearly the joys of my life.

Lines and Spots

I adore playing with lines. A line can carve a shape out of a piece of blank paper. The shape can move or be still. It can dance and it can meditate.

I adore spots, splatters and seemingly haphazard marks. It is only when I make these simple strokes and dabs that I absolutely don't care what anyone else thinks about what I'm doing.

It is spring and it is time to eliminate the unnecessary and to redefine my path. Perhaps I should imagine it is spring each morning when I awaken.

Cleaning House

I've been trying to simplify my life. Hah! That has always been the greatest challenge.

While sorting through my studios, the home studio and working studio, I found I have too many dangling projects...too many copies of "The Collie of Castle Hill" (the children's book I wrote and illustrated) and too many Limited Edition Giclee Prints of Captured-Digigraphs, Digital Photographs and Reproductions of original paintings. I have made a promise to myself to either make use of the things that are taking up room in my workspace or throw them out. With this in mind, I have decided to list some of the giclee prints on eBay. I have also opened an online Etsy.com store to sell small originals and prints. I love the idea of Etsy because it focuses on items Made by the Artist! and not bargain basement specials.

That said.... I continue to do my little studies. I find that I am becoming more aware of my obsessiveness over composition. The two versions of the painting of Round Valley Reservoir illustrates the lessons I learn from these little studies.

The image on the left was the first version of the painting. I thought it was finished ... a quick study.... no big deal. Hah! When I looked at it the next morning, the triangle created by the tree trunks in the middle of the painting drove me crazy. My eye could not leave that spot and it wasn't a very interesting spot to be stuck in.

I painted out the annoying tree trunk. Now the horizontal branches on the far right are causing me a bit of lost sleep, but not enough to change them. It is a 5"x8" study... not a 5' by 8' painting.

Thanks to these little studies, my large paintings will reap the benefits of the compositional errors that would be magnified in the larger works. As I look at the images on the blog, the triangle is not as distracting as it was in my studio. It does, however, block me from seeing past the grove of pine trees. I love traveling into the unknown.

Red Pepper

Although I enjoyed painting the pepper on the left, the only element of the still life that truly excited me was the curve of the stem and the upper contour line of the pepper itself. I struggled to find another element to include in the second painting. I thought I would enjoy layering the shadow forms over the pepper. In the end, it was only the curve of the stem and the contour line that held my attention.

Playing with Still Life Design

Limiting my palette in order to develop a better understanding of color has led me to painting a series of small still life studies both in oil and in watercolor. During the cold, winter months I am more inclined to work in a warm studio than I am to paint outdoors as I did in my younger years.

As much as I love throwing the paint and pulling images out of the resulting patterns, I find myself wanting to introduce more layers of human interest in my work. The desire to portray more specific personalities, archetypes and situations requires developing greater drawing skills and brush manipulation. I am delving deeper into the understanding of color in order to portray more specific mood and atmospheric environment for the characters that evolve in the larger paintings.

















At times I feel as if I am taking a giant step backwards. A part of me feels that by now I should have a solid understanding of all the elements of art and be able to simply paint with joy and expression. A greater part of me knows that the reason I continue to paint is because there will always be more for me to learn. I am never bored. I am never complacent. I am always challenged by the extent of what I don't see, don't understand and can't express.
However, I find it necessary, after struggling with the uninspiring realistic representation of a still life object, to treat myself to a bit of play, focusing on the elements of the object that delight me, making them dance through space, releasing them from their comatose state of reality.

The paintings in this series are tiny. The oil paintings are either 5" x 5" or 5" x 8", painted on gessoed, birch plywood. The watercolor paintings are about the same size with a few variations.

Scent of Love - Jigsaw Puzzle - Image by Chris Carter

When it was suggested that my captured-digigraph images would make great jigsaw puzzles I was thrilled. I wasn't sure it would become a reality. Thanks to Andrews and Blaine, it is. The 'Scent of Love' puzzle is currently available in Barnes and Noble stores and online.

Scent of Love Puzzle Image by Christine Reilly Carter Produced by Andrews Blaine Sold through Barnes and Noble
ISBN-13: 9780641857652

The story behind the image:

Tom, arrived home from a long day of work and saw that the dozen long-stemmed roses he had given me in the morning no longer had stems of any length at all. The beautiful, pink blossoms were floating in a bowl of water on the table. Next to the bowl was a gorgeous print I had made from scanning the blossoms. His response was a giant smile. That is true love.

And so began a seven-year detour from my path as a painter. I scanned everything in site, flowers, thorns, insects, beads, animals, tools, hinges, food, textiles and even my children. An abstract artist at heart, nature provided me with every shape, texture, color and line to play with. More than a thousand images later, the print of the pink roses remains one of my favorites. Through it all, Tom has supported my journey as an artist.

Link to Barnes and Noble listing

Portable Paint Box

Inspired by my friend Xochitl Barnes, I put together this fabulous tiny paintbox/easel. It fits nicely into my backpack and holds everything I need to paint a tiny painting. I'm looking forward to trying it out at Porters Pub this Friday night.

My return to painting on site is an attempt to refresh my ability to handle a paintbrush with poetry of line and motion. I moved away from brushwork in my large watercolor paintings. My need for expression of story within the abstract patterns has led me back to drawing and painting from life in order to bring these skills back to the larger works. I find it difficult to transfer drawings onto watercolor paper after I have built up the initial layering of patterns. I also find that when a figure is transferred, it loses a bit of its vitality. Returning to the skills of direct observation allows me to draw directly onto the watercolor paper without having to make multiple corrections that will destroy the surface of the paper.

These little studies are so much fun that I could easily become a "painting a day" fanatic. It's no wonder that there are now thousands of artists following the lead of Duane Keiser.

The cold weather is a bit of a deterrent. I've sifted through hundreds of photographs and pulled out dozens that I use for inspiration when the weather is too chilly and I'm not in the mood to paint a pair of scissors or a salt shaker.

Traveling and painting is once again a realistic notion. Over the years, the necessary supplies that I carted around to paint outdoors became ridiculously cumbersome. With a limited palette and my tiny box, I am ready to go anywhere.

A Lesson in Color Mixing

I go through phases of carrying a small bag of paints and supplies with me wherever I go and spreading myself out in my gigantic studio without a square inch to spare. The current phase is one of traveling light. Even in my home studio I am using a small box of paints and one or two brushes. I used only tube watercolor paints for the past twenty plus years. A few months ago, when I began serious re-evaluation of my palette and the mud-making color theory that accompanied it, I began experimenting with pan paints, limiting my palette to only three to five colors, using the logic of subtractive color rather than additive color. What a joy!

I had to laugh when I found an old metal paint box of pan paints a couple of days ago while cleaning out a drawer of art supplies. The paint box was made by Binney & Smith, Inc. a company that began in 1885, the creators of Crayola crayons. (In January of 2007 "Binney & Smith" changed its name to "Crayola".) The paints in the box are called "Artista Water Colors No.8" and I believe they are at least twenty years old. The colors are Primary Red, Orange No.5, Primary Yellow, Green No.7, Primary Blue, Violet No.5, Burnt Umber No.3, and Black No.? (a bit of rust over the number). What I find interesting is that the Primary Red is not the Fire Engine Red I was taught to make as a primary red in my color theory class at Spectrum Institute for the Advertising Arts in the early 70's. Nor are the primary yellow or the primary blue the primaries I was taught to create. Instead, the three primaries in my Binney & Smith paint box are closer to a Magenta, a Hansa Yellow and a Prussian Blue, the three primaries I have been using in my recent color studies. I have found that with just those three colors I can mix anything I want without it turning to mud. It still puzzles me that I didn't question the split primary color theory I was taught so long ago. Mud is guaranteed when using such a palette. Perhaps, if I had not turned my nose up at pan paints years ago, I would have learned that lesson earlier. As I recall, the choice of paints in many watercolor paint boxes are similar to the Binney & Smith No.8 collection.

Over the years I marveled at paintings with gorgeous colors, rich neutrals and pure hues that sang strongly on the paper. Though I read many books on color and tried other artists' palettes, an understanding of color alluded me. Occasionally I would be fortunate to chose my colors well. Most often, I allowed myself to fall back on the split primaries, killed the color, and fought hard to bring life back into the painting. I washed a lot of paint down the drain.

It's a bit frightening, starting from scratch. It's also a bit embarrassing. But fear and embarrassment are a small price to pay for finally feeling as if I'm on the right path toward understanding color and having control over the colors I mix.

Watercolor Painting: Nicole sitting outside the Fundació Caixa Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

Meditation and Painting

When I was a young child, I was given an extraordinary gift, a subscription to a book club. Each month a book containing a collection of stories and poems arrived in the mailbox. The books open doors to worlds I had not experienced on my own.

As an adult I still treasure the gift of a book. This year I received a copy of "The Joy of Living - Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness" by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a Buddhist monk. Yongey Mingyur presents the parallels between meditation and neuroscience with humor and simplicity.

My experience with meditation began at the age of fourteen. As an artist, there are times when I am painting without "creating". Those sessions leave me feeling frustrated and empty. When I am "creating" I am usually in the same state of consciousness that I am when I meditate. When I have been asked about this, I have found it difficult to explain. Yongey Mingyur explains my experience. He demystifies meditation and explains how one can be practicing meditation throughout the day during normal activities (such as painting). I am hopeful that this book will awaken readers to their own creativity and the joy that comes along with the creative experience. In my mind, observing one's environment with open eyes and an open heart is new and unique each and every time. Allowing that experience to be expressed and acknowledged even silently within one's own thoughts is creative and joyful whether the feeling is happy or sad.

Image: Music and Art in the Big Bad City by Chris Carter
Mixed Media Collage - Paper and Acrylic on Masonite
Size: 10" x 10"

Metro Madness No.2

This is the completed second painting I began after hearing of my son's close call on the Brussel's Metro. It is an excellent example of working through an emotion and coming out on the other side having survived and having learned several important lessons along the way. I am speaking about myself, not my son, though I believe his own experience was equally as valuable.

This painting was a lesson in "content and intention". I wanted it to express a quality of light, of wisdom, of coming through the darkness to a more balanced state of emotions and mind. I wanted it to be a vision of the larger experience of life, beyond the daily ups and downs.

My uncontrollable state of emotional distress was worked out in the first painting and left me free to move on and explore the post-trauma feelings. This was a new experience for me. I have not used painting in this manner, as a way to work through an experience acknowledging each and every thought and physical sensation, expressing them visually with the intent of reaching a resolution and a clarity of understanding how the experience fits into my life in a way that is positive rather than negative.

Painting: Oil on Kraft Paper "Metro Madness No.2" 24" x 48"

Dark Deja Vu

August 14, 2007 ... I received an email from my son Michael.

....Yes, a steak sounds great. I have to warn you though I am not as handsome as yesterday. Last night some kids tried to steal my sunglasses and I told them to f... off. They followed me off the tram. Three vs one. They had a knife. So I took some punches and a head butt to the face. I am ok but I have a black eye ... opoooppps haha it's terrible, almost a flawless summer. I am in good spirits. it was just bull...t.

Sun 19AUG DELTA 141 SA J LV BRUSSELS 1120A L ** AR NYC-KENNEDY 135P BUSINESS

love,
mike

.......

I'm thankful for the technology that permits instant correspondence across the ocean. Within twenty-four hours I was assured that the knife had not come into contact with my son's body and that nothing had been taken from him. He suffered a black eye, a serious cut above the eye, and a battered nose. He told me that when he exited the tram and the three guys followed him, he experienced a vivid Deja Vu of having gotten off at the same stop and being murdered. He consciously decided to alter the end result in his current reality. Fortunately he succeeded.

Back in my studio, I knew better than to work on any of the paintings that were already in progress. Though I had been as positive and supportive as possible in my emails to Mike, I knew I was not holding up well internally. I tacked two fresh pieces of kraft paper on the wall and let myself fall apart, thinking of all the possible scenarios that did not have the happy ending of seeing my son walk toward me at the airport in five more days.

My goal was to paint through the experience, expressing it, allowing it to express itself, and ultimately to grow from it, finding a greater strength from having stepped out of a safety zone where you think you can count on your children being healthy, happy and safe.

At the end of the first day of painting, I wiped the paper clean with turpentine. Ghost images remained and were the foundation of the final painting. I felt not a stroke had been wasted or unnecessary in spite of the fact that I eliminated all of them at the end of the painting session. Each stroke relieved a bit of anguish, a bit of anger, a bit of fear, a bit of frustration, a bit of worry until I was empty of those emotions and I could start to build again from the heat of the love I have for my son and the relief of knowing his heart still beats in a whole, healthy body.

Breaking Old Habits

A couple of weeks ago I felt exuberant. I felt my new paintings were strong and I was expressing a balance of creativity, skill, expression of experience and content, uniquely mine. I felt comfortable with my personal language of marks and media and I could begin to dig much deeper into the experience of daily life to strengthen the content of my work.

Inspired by Robert Genn's June 25, 2007 newsletter in which he wrote about Emily Carr, I dug through my file cabinet to find my Emily Carr folder that held a pile of papers with quotes I had copied from several of her books. When I discovered her, twenty-five years ago, I did not care much for her paintings, but I felt I found a kindred spirit. Over the years, when I strayed from the path of painting from spirit, I thought of Emily and would do my best to head back in a better direction. Among the papers in the file folder where a couple of pages from one of my journals. I thought it odd that they would be in the Emily Carr folder, so I read them to see how it was that they might relate. They didn't. They did, however, make it perfectly clear to me that I still struggle with the same mental and emotional obstacles in my life and that I have not broken the habits that hold me back, the habits that keep me from growing as a spiritual being and as an artist. I could have written the journal entries yesterday. How distressing.

Since that rude awakening, I have felt numb. That, too, is part of my habitual cycle. My solution, in order to not find myself in this same repeating cycle in another twenty-five years, is to consciously behave differently in as many small, everyday situations as I can, throughout my waking hours. I doubt than anyone could notice the difference in my behavior. I, on the other hand, feel as if a major coup is going on inside of me, making me rather uncomfortable and a bit disoriented.

The result of this exercise in moving forward is that my point of view has shifted; "truths" have revealed themselves as "attitudes". That realization opened a giant can of worms. This is just the beginning of an exciting journey, certainly not an easy one. At this point, I have nothing to lose by being even bolder and more daring as an artist and as a human being. It is easy to be bold and daring on the outside. It is far more difficult to be bold and daring on the inside.

Simplicity of Expression

Life as an artist often becomes far too complicated. I continue to ask myself "What really matters? What means of expression brings me the most joy, the most satisfaction? Of all the work I've done, which are most meaningful to me?" The truth is that the free, uninhibited flow of a line is most precious to me. Everything else I do leads up to this moment of letting go. A painting that I work on for hours or days or months is practice me for that precious moment when the eye, the spirit, the soul and the hand are united as one, inspired by music, by movement, by pattern or light.

Integrated System - Stages of Development

Integrated System - Oil on Kraft Paper

The first stage begins with a free-form, dance of line. I use soft, vine charcoal on a large (42" x 54") sheet of kraft paper tacked up on the wall with push pins. At this point I critically view the drawing from about fifteen feet away to check the flow of the line, the rhythm of the forms and the overall composition. I use a tissue or paper towel to eliminate unnecessary and awkward lines. I draw, eliminate and redraw until I am satisfied that the drawing is strong enough to support the painting. In order to begin painting, the drawing must have a spark of its own energy and life that I can nurture and develop with paint.

I decide on my color palette. For "Integrated System" I chose venetian red, cadmium yellow pale, yellow ochre, cadmium red medium, raw sienna, pthalo turquoise, pthalo blue and viridian. On occasion I will do a few value sketches. In this case I do not. I begin laying in color, basing each decision of color and value of color on the effect of the previous application and staying in touch with the developing personality and movement of the painting.

Everything goes fairly smoothly until it becomes clear that the large shape on the right side of the painting is not going to work. The left side of the painting is not balanced by the right side. The shape on the right is awkward and stops the movement of line across the two dimensional plane and prevents the viewer from entering into the dark space beyond the forms.

The final resolution was the large dark hole in the awkward shape.

A Work in Progress

The development of When Heads Begin to Roll illustrates a few of the challenges I confront when I surrender to the needs of the emerging image. I find it painful to sacrifice the freshness and the initial energy of the underwashes and the linework. The subtle suggestions of form in the preliminary translucent layers of paint are extremely seductive and my desire is to allow them to remain suggestions rather than clarify them and risk rendering them motionless and lifeless. The first challenge was the disitinct separation between the left half and the right half of the painting. Each side had a completely different feeling of space and of the movement within that space. In resolving the sense of movement throughout the entire painting I lost some of the elements of the story that I had begun to unravel in my mind. As the painting developed further I took greater risks with the values and the delineation of forms. Looking back at the first stage, I see that there are a few shapes that I need to recreate in order to maintain the original direction of the painting. After having lost several of my favorite areas of transparent overlays, I decided to see how far I could push this painting with bold colors within a limited palette. Cadmium red is always difficult for me to work with. I love the dynamics that a bright red can add to a painting if used with moderation. Cadmium red, when mixed with other colors quickly becomes lifeless. To keep the color vibrant without diminishing the strength of the forms and their movement is my currrent challenge.

The small orb on the left side beneath the upper, red corner resolved a difficult area, a shape that was causing the painting to visually split horizontally, stopping the circular movement of the heads. This solution was a surprise to me after eight unsuccessful attempts to resolve this area. Every shape within a painting, regardless of its size, can significantly alter the entire composition, setting it in motion or causing it to be static.

Image: When Heads Begin to Roll - Oil on Kraft Paper - 36" x 48" (Stages 1, 2, 3 and the final resolution #4)

Altered Ego

Last night's conversation among four artists, each working in a different discipline (painting, film, fiber, pottery) touched on how the artist's ego plays a part both in the creative process as well as the post-creative life of the completed work of art. For the most part I am not attached to my paintings once they are completed. I am happy for them to find their way into the lives of others. If I have done my job well, the painting will continue to open the mind and heart of the viewer to new thoughts, emotions, memories and ideas through a balance of beauty, movement and the tension sparked by shapes, lines and color.

Perhaps it is the manner in which I paint that prevents my ego from getting involved during the creative process. My ego must step aside and allow my anima to direct the brush strokes and the splattering of paint. The anima is defined in Jungian philosphy as the inner self, the soul of an individual, not the external persona or the ego. If I do not shut off my ego, the painting does not reach the critical point at which I begin to have a sense of direction. From that point I become extremely focused on the needs of the painting. It is not a question of what I want the painting to be but what the painting has the potential of being.

Ego may be defined as the self, distinct from the world and other selves. When I am painting well I feel as if the work I am creating is a collaborative work and I do not have a sense of ownership. Joy and the euphoria of creativity is experienced during the process of balancing the chaos with which I begin the painting and while coaxing the painting into a form that conveys a universal message. The message might be profound and it might be rather superficial, it is not something I attempt to control.

For more than twenty years, I produced art without experiencing creativity. I struggled to express something meaningful and to produce what I thought to be quality art. It amazes me that I continued to paint. I felt like I was on the right path going the wrong direction. Now I feel as if I've stepped off the path to explore the unknown. I love every minute of the adventure and the increasing difficulty of the challenge.