The linen and the stretcher bars had no idea how or when they would meet the paint, but they knew they would, eventually. I had no idea how or when the paint would be applied, but I knew it would, because I could see the painting as object long before I could see color or imagery.
I am fully aware of how lucky I am to have time to make things (art, work, stuff... cocktails), in this glorious space between the exhaustion of summer school and the anticipation of the fall semester. My problem is not time, or lack of, in this most expansive of seasons. My problem is trust. Or, it can be. Trust in the process. But, I'm working on that.
I was talking with a friend the other day, who is also an artist, and she was telling me what it is like to spend time with her mom who struggles with an early onset and severe form of dementia. She said that it demands presence, that everything else, responsibilities and anxieties, just fall away. And, then she said, it's like making art.
The cynic in me has long wondered what this making business is all about and whether it is even worth my time, energy and money. But, the artist in me, who is much bigger and stronger than the cynic, knows that my very life might depend on it. (I know, rather dramatic, but this is a soliloquy.) So, I have been coming back again and again to this idea, this beautiful observation by my friend that intimately ties together presence and making and relationships, in the days since we talked about it. And, I try to remember it in those moments of doubt.
So, now, when I see something in my brain, and know that that something might be good, I try to trust and follow through, and enjoy the process of that becoming.
Beautiful.
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