
oil on canvas, 18″x 28″
Summer is coming to an end, so I’m trying to finish up all the pieces I’d started but haven’t yet concluded. I’m often afraid of the finishing process, especially if I like what I’ve done so far; painting is easier in the beginning stages when there’s nothing to save or lose. And then I usually don’t know how to finish, don’t know what the piece needs; there are so many options, only the most basic fragments of which I can imagine, and so until they’re revealed, by happy accident essentially, I don’t know what they are, so I’m going in blind, so to speak. Furthermore, it gets harder to keep a piece fresh and real the more it develops. That balance between allowing a spontaneity of marks and effects to happen, and care with what already works is very elusive, and amounts to a dance on the canvas that could well result in a tragic fall. And so the finishing process calls for a certain courage, a confidence to strike out; but knowing how easy it is to ruin a good piece tempers such positivity, and the reject pile is high, and so courage is hard to find… and I’m afraid of that familiar feeling of frustration, of wasting precious time, of being a failure.
I want the magic of gorgeous paint to just happen, as it sometimes does, but it can’t get on the canvas by itself, and my hand is so heavy – so it’s me, my heavy hand, and fear, or at best trepidation…
But today it worked well enough, so I’m somewhat heartened. I kept thinking of icons when I was painting it, and I think that guided the palette. I used to immerse myself in books of icons, and hang out in icon galleries, so maybe one of those ancient saints decided to step in and lighten my heavy hand, to allow the sacredness of Nature to be honoured, to the best of my stumbling ability…