Loosening Up

Anyone who knows me - as a person and an artist - knows I have a few control issues. :) Specifically in art, I am very, very restrained. I work on those huge canvases with a tiny brush, applying paint on canvas carefully and consistently. By the time the images get on canvas, there is no uncertainty about where the piece is going. It’s been planned and controlled from conceptualization.

Well, in an attempt to loosen up a little, I decided to do an abstract. A friend built me a 48” x 72” cradled wood panel and I decided to use house paint for the surface. I visited numerous Lowes and Home Depots and bought all the weird colors they had in the discount, “Ew, I don’t like this color so I’m returning it” bin. I bought assorted odd brushes - again, from hardware stores - roofing, wall paper, faux finish brushes. I was ready to let loose.

First things first, though. I needed to make a small swatch board, cross referencing the paint cans with the swatched colors. Now, let me ask you, do you see the irony in this? I honestly didn’t. I had an open studio and was proudly showing all my visitors my preparatory attempts to let loose. The subsequent looks of - amusement? pity? - made me stop in my tracks and just shake my head. I got it. Geez.

I reluctantly put the swatch board away and one Saturday went in to do my painting. Logistics was a consideration...how was I to actually get paint on canvas? I decided to pour the paint into cups and then directly pour onto canvas. My initial idea was to use all those cool brushes and scrape-y things to create texture. But when I took that cup of paint and poured the line...I was enamored. With the line. I wanted to just call it a day there. No, no, no, I told myself, move on. I poured the next color. And the the next. Straight lines gave way to curved and circular lines. I was practically throwing the paint. I stood there looking at all this paint and the idea of lifting the canvas up on it’s end occurred to me. What the hell. I did it - no easy feat, since the sucker weighed about 50 pounds. I let the paint drip for a while and then I wondered what it would look like of I tilted it the other way. I did. It dripped some more. Paint was everywhere. I stepped in it...tracked it through the studio, got it between my toes.

Anyway, you get the message. I used no brushes, nothing other than cups to pour the paint. And the end result couldn’t have been further away from my expectations. But, I had fun. BIG fun. While it would be a while before I would do this again (this occurred last summer, well before my “screw-it-I’m-going-to-play” epiphany from the last post), I do feel that this experience helped open me up to new creativity.

Musings...

So Why Can’t Artists Be Creative Anymore??

My difficulties have highlighted an idea/notion in my mind. There is all this talk of being creative in the workplace, how creative people are going to take over the world, yada, yada. But let’s look at what’s really happening. As an artist - and one who would very much like to make my sole living from selling art - it was ingrained in me early that I would need to 1) have an easily identifiable style, 2) create a body of work in that style and 3) don’t deviate. I was taught that mixing it up - with alternate mediums, styles, etc. would just confuse buyers and make people hesitant to collect your art. (And that is yet another notion that I find questionable - that people need to collect serious art out of the desire to “invest” as opposed to the attraction/love/etc of the piece they are viewing - messed up, if you ask me, but that’s a whole other topic of discussion.) So, I am a creative person. My creativity, IF I am to be successful, has to be limited to a particular niche? After seven years of entertaining this idea, I have finally said screw it.

As I said in the last post...it is time to play.