02 Feb This Week in the Studio

Lately I’ve been feeling a shift coming on…a need to deep dive into abstraction.

Some things I’m playing around with in the studio…staining my canvases in washes of watercolor…more intuitive painting. When painting large in the past, I’ve painted small mockups first, then translated it to a large canvas later. Now I am throwing and pouring water and painting straight on the big canvases. Allowing what will happen to happen. This is where the magic lies…in the experimentation. Each happy accident informing the next. A conversation with the painting itself and its becoming. What does it want to be?

I’m doing my best to get out of the way and allow the painting and the relationship between my intuition and the alchemical reaction of the paint drive the journey and inform my next move. It’s the way I began painting abstract when I first returned to it a decade ago.

I’m returning to this way of painting because it’s the essential stuff that pulls me to the studio. The possibility of what will happen. The potential breakthrough in technique or found texture.

I’m happy to return to basics, even taking a painting class this week and checking out some painting and color mixing books at the library.

After pouring so much energy into building my art business, and doing commissions and client work, it feels really right to be drawn into the studio. I want to push my practice and discover new territory.

This shift I’ve been feeling isn’t without pain. Change is hard. It’s hard to head into the unknown. How will my paintings evolve? What will the next series explore? How can my work evolve while still being recognizably mine?

Some culture consumption this week to foster this shift…

Reading M Train…the always brilliant stream of consciousness writing by Patti Smith forces me to ask deeper questions, and always be observing.

Listening to Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key on audible…learning this stoic philosophy on stillness, meditation, breathing and letting go. It’s a pep talk on how to sloooow down. These days with three children, any method of self care that also helps hack time is GOLD.

I’m studying the techniques of Helen Frankenthaler and trying to achieve a freer execution on canvas…loosening up.

I’m excited, (a little scared), and ready for a change.