Little Prayers
This morning when I awoke, I felt pretty good for an old guy, 81.
I surveyed my Iweb software with which I create my website to see if I've forgotten anything in preparation for the next issue of Old Art Guy. Although there was much to be done on the website, it looked manageable.
Being that the preparations for my last art show damned near killed me---well, not literally, but it was a physically daunting struggle for me. It was enough of a struggle that I conceded to my illnesses that I should probably surrender my painting efforts.
However, I think about painting every day. Mainly I mentally make adjustments to paintings I once thought complete but have subsequently considered them to be in need of alterations---hopefully improvements.
When I began my painting efforts years ago, I tended to paint images based on the world I saw with my eyes.
Several years ago I made an eight month effort to paint abstracts…or as I think they are called now “nonobjective art” or “nonrepresentational art.”
After eight months of effort, I lined them up along the baseboard of the walls on the back porch and concluded that they were trash---well, maybe not “trash” but most were pretty bad art. I stacked them in the garage and went on to paint a bunch of charming animals.
I've always been an objective judge of my painting efforts. The rejection of my own paintings didn't hurt my feelings one little bit. My conclusion just reflected reality.
More recently I returned to abstracts. I guess I had developed skills undeveloped in my preceding efforts because these I liked…I respected. I even arranged for the aforementioned show.
I am not normally a navel gazer, but I've been doing a little of this lately related to abstract painting.
When I awoke this morning, my first thought surprised me: “Abstract are little prayers offered up to Gawd.”
I know…I know…that's weird, but there is something special---different about abstracts. One thing that is different is that they seem to detest being small; I did a hundred small abstracts as a warm up to the larger efforts. I discovered that the larger efforts are so different visually that the warm up efforts were pretty much a waste of time or at least were not good models for the larger efforts. Obviously most other genre of paintings could care less about their sizes.
Another thing different about abstracts is that they give creators of the paintings total autonomy over what is created in the paintings. Holy crap! That's a lot of freedom. With autonomy comes responsibility. Tread lightly.
I do not wish to imply that other types of painting are inferior…just different.
On a few occasions while painting abstracts, a strange feeling came over me. It was a feeling that I was not alone---that there was a “presence” with me---that something special was happening.
Yeah, I know, creepy, but I'm stuck with these impressions.
Please don't ask me the “meaning” of one of my abstracts---I may respond, “It's just a little prayer,” and then you also will be stuck with that thought.
enough