Last week I bought a 4'x5' canvas with the idea of scaling up one of my small works (6"×4"). I learned a big lesson from this: Enlarging a small work involves sketching the enlarged composition on the full size canvas - turning the whole thing into nothing more than a kind of paint-by-numbers experience!
After 15 minutes of painting I realized that I didn't want to go this way at all and gave up that whole project. I then flipped the canvas top to bottom and proceeded like I always do with nothing but intuition and spontaneity to guide me.
Reknowned architect, Frank Gehry, has this expression "creative insecurity,” which I see as part of the creative process for a lot of us creatives. It isn't something we get over - it is always there to some extent, especially in the beginning of a new work.
10 years into painting and I always begin new works, especially bigger ones, wondering if I will be able to produce something that shakes me up, entirely resonates within me!
While there is a barreness and emptiness, an unfinished aspect, to this painting, it speaks to me none the less, perhaps more to my soul than my eyes. Time, eternity, truth…they are all in this painting.
In light of current events in Ukraine, is it any wonder I see the black (darkness, evil, fear…) along the bottom of this painting as being eroded on the left by brightness and light which continues to push back from all sides! Victory to Ukraine!
