Learning to Play

When you watch children play, it becomes obvious they are making it up as they go along. There may be some rules, something like "you guys are on that side and we're on this side." Beyond that almost everything gets made up as they go along. When they get bored they stop and do something else. This is play.

It sounds easy. It's not. As adults we've become outcome driven. So how do we re-learn play? As an artist how do I play and bring freshness to a painting?

I'm learning it's by paying attention to how I feel while I paint. The process is to work on several paintings at the same time. Just start and keep moving. Have one of the pieces be a throwaway piece--a painting where I intentionally don't care what happens on it or to it.

This is the art process I'm learning and it's working--at least some of the time it's working. It's easy to get to a stage where I like some of it but know it's not really very good. That's when it's frustrating. Stop. Move on to the next piece. When I return it's easier to see what needs to be done to make it better. It's easier to give up those things I sort of liked and wanted to keep. It gets easier to paint right over them.

It gets easier and more fun each day. It's fun to go into the studio and not wonder if anything good will come of the day's work. I'm finding I really enjoy the fixing part. I find ways to make the design stronger, to move the viewers eye around the painting. I've begun paying attention to those moments when I feel most engaged and when I become bored.

Here are the 5 stages of the painting I've been playing with. Who knows what will happen to it tomorrow? But it's exciting to think about.

What does inspiration have to do with it?

I haven’t been in an art class for a number of years so I decided to do an online art course. It's a 3-month course and the journey will probably continue for a year. The artist presenting is someone I've followed for several years and whose work I admire.

The first assignment was to make a board about what inspires you. I resisted this first assignment because it seemed a little too like art therapy. Many things inspire me but they're not things that, as an abstract artist I want to paint. I love sunsets. I love the ocean. I love the tangle of branches and vines. But, that does not compel me to paint them. I’m not drawn to paint sunsets. I’ve already painted sunsets.

Part of the course includes live zoom conversations with the artist and several art coaches. The conversation I listened to was about giving some thought to the “why“ of the things that inspire.

Pondering this I focused on current paintings and the artist statement I currently use. My statement says “painting is solving a puzzle. I make a mark and it creates a problem that will need to be solved with the next mark. The next mark creates a new problem. And so I work until I can find no more problems to solve.”

I think this is why I am drawn to the tangle of branches and vines in the Pacific Northwest. They are the lines and marks made by nature and beautiful in their own right. It is the pleasure of seeing the lines and the negative space between the lines that inspire and inform my work. It’s the color and mood of the sea that finds it’s way into my paintings.