In a third act scene from the movie “A Christmas Carol”, Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Alistair Sims)– having just acquired a new lease on life–prances about his room “as giddy as a schoolboy”. Searching maniacally for something to write on he waves his hands in the air and chants, “Label-label-label.”
When my painting style first emerged I labeled it “intuitive” “interactive” and “meditative”. Later, in the effort to sound more painterly, I decided it was “abstract” and “impressionistic”. More recently, I’ve had to admit it is “whimsical”—but mostly as in the 16th century term ‘whim-wham’ which was coined to describe “an eccentric impulse or interest”—not so much in the more current sense of “things that are unusual in a playful or amusing way”. Some of my works, after all, are sombre and dark.
Today, as I reflected on these things I circled back to “intuitive” “interactive” and “meditative”. I had very recently realized, as I listened to other artists describe their practice, that my approach is the antithesis of planning. In that moment I felt alarmingly outside of the circle and, conversely, in danger of being forced to choose between my process and the practical application of skills important to excelling in my paint practice…because the cornerstone of my process is a plan to not plan. Or, at least, to plan as little as possible when I’m actually sat down to paint.
That said, I’ve come to allow a certain amount of forethought and pre-planning in my acrylic practice. My comfort is that the objects in my paintings are visible reminders of my innate style, which is…
Loose
Intuitive.
Fleeting objects, captured in paint,
reminisce of the natural world around me but, most assuredly,
from within; a part of me and foreign,
not things you might imagine…
not even things I imagine. They are, rather, found
not by focusing my eyes on any object around me but by allowing my gaze to drift inward. (In truth, this is not difficult. It’s actually more difficult to resist it.)
I can paint somewhat realistically but it exhausts me. I do not have the built-in muscle memory developed through the rehearsal of repeatedly drawing familiar objects. And even though I sometimes envy the representational drawing skill of my artist friends, I do not wish it for myself.
What I want is stubbornly persistent: to explore and learn and build comfort in the use of these relatively new tools and materials so that I can continue to create freely, spontaneously, interactively.
As I allow things to take shape on the canvas, what is invisible becomes visible, what is held inside comes out and I discover, I learn. This, for me, is the impetus and the joy, the magic of painting; the thing that can make me “as giddy as a schoolboy”.
moya 