wistful thinking

I’ve been working on a new painting on and off for the past couple of weeks. It’s an abstract/expressionist sort of thing, the idea being to expand my horizons by pushing beyond the confines of subject matter and focusing strictly on paint, texture, color, and their relationship to each other. So far it’s been going relatively well, all things considered, but now the canvas seems to have turned a corner and entered an awkward stage, poised for the moment between two extremes. At this point, it could be an extraordinary work of unprecedented genius. Or it could be a train wreck. It could go either way.

For the painting has developed a mind of it’s own, and something of a personality disorder in the process. It’s defying me at every turn. The colors, once bright and clear have turned dark and brooding; the composition, originally accessible and well proportioned, now appears tight, intense and too closed in on itself.

The canvas is talking back and challenging me ~ it’s staying up late and wearing too much pigment; taking the car, smokin' the linseed, hittin' the turpentine. It’s threatening to run with a dubious crowd ~ Baziotes, Basquiat and Schnabel ~ oh, fine paintings if you like that sort of thing, but not exactly what I had in mind for it. I had planned on it hanging with more of a Johns, Bartlett, Miro set, a more subtle and refined bunch, to my mind and frankly I’m not willing to give up on that dream. Not yet.

So I feel as I imagine the parent of any such rebellious and angst ridden adolescent must feel ~ do I continue to try and impose my will upon such a reluctant canvas, for it is mine and I maintain the right to direct the course of it’s destiny, or do I relinquish the cherished illusion of omnipotence and serve merely as guide and conduit, keeping it as much out of trouble as possible, but otherwise letting the paint chips fall where they may?

The critic in me recognizes that this is all silly, romantic nonsense, of course. Painting is pigment, brush and canvas, and any skilled technician is fully in control of the process, from conception to final execution. But I am more fanciful than skilled, and can’t help thinking that sometimes things help create themselves, often in spite of our best efforts to control them.

I like to think that. It makes me happy to imbue such objects with free will. I enjoy them more; they become my friends. Some are prettily luminous; some dark and complex. Some are thoughtful and precise; others chaotic and entertaining. All are appreciated for their internal strengths and weaknesses, whatever they may be, and are revelations in their own way whenever they appear.

Also, if objects help to manifest themselves, it’s not entirely my responsibility if a piece turns out poorly ~ like Jessica Rabbit, they’re not really bad; they’re just drawn that way. Oh wait ~ I guess I do have to take the fall for that.

Never mind.