I experienced another manic-depressive art day on Saturday. Hours of work that accomplished zero moving forward in the work. So the spiral began with the devil’s whisper, "You know nothing about color harmony or about color theory. Look at it! It isn’t working." It was just like the cartoon with the little red devil sitting on the shoulder.

That night I came across a documentary on PBS called "The Devil’s Miner". Please have a look and catch the film if you can. It will give you some perspective that Americans in particular need desperately.
………."OOOHHH, my life is so bad!!! I can’t get the color right on my painting!!!!!"""…..blah, blah, blah……….

Soup cans and lilly pads

There is a very interesting documentary on Andy Warhol airing on PBS stations at the moment. Though I have never connected with his work on any level, the film is well made and did help me to empathize with and understand him better. Catch it if you can. Like his work or not he is a significant figure in the landscape of the ninteen century and did indeed change the way people think about art.

Back to "Jeff". I spent several hours painting in an idea only to hate it the next day. On to the next idea which seems to be working. I haven’t looked today, haven’t even been in the room with the work today. I am afraid to look. I overthink everything. It seems my left brain is trying to take up more and more of the couch squeezing my right brain onto the floor or even out of the room.

I think I am mastering what Eric Maisel, creativity coach extraordinare, calls "the most important short walk of your life." The walk to the work. I can choose to walk anywhere, to a miriad of seemingly important tasks or amusings, but to choose to turn toward and walk to the work is difficult. It is at the easel I encounter myself. God has used my art consistently to show me things about myself, to dig up, to cut off and to plant, as well. Hence, the difficulty in moving toward the work. What will I find out about myself? Usually it isn’t something I want to look at. Control, impatience, selfishness…. I could go on.

On a lighter note, I had the opportunity to ride last weekend. Yee-haw.

Qbix opening

So, up to Philadelphia we traveled in the wake of Ernesto for the gallery opening at Qbix to showcase new work and volume two of Qbix magazine. It rained the entire drive and by the time we arrived at the hotel, the wind was really picking up. I don’t need to tell you I thought the thing would be a wash out. Most of you that know me are aware that I struggle with a natural negative bent, so it took a lot of faith and discipline to believe God for the best and let it go.

After a delivery pizza and a shower we headed out and up the two blocks to the gallery. Windy, rainy yet the gallery was packed and continued to be full of folks though the night. Apparently, the weather has little effect on the plans of the people of Philadelphia. A few of the other artists, Kenny Brown and Barbara Poole came to the event as well.

The encouraging thing for me was to hear from folks how much my painting impacted them. For most artists, and especially for me, the work making some sort of connection, some sort if puncture is really important. I was happy to have the painting make some marks on people and for them to go away with those marks.

Confirmation about your chosen path is always a wonderful thing. I was confirmed in my call and confirmed in the direction I need to go. See "Craig’s confession" above. The gallery owners chose to hang an older painting of a more surreal nature. So, Craig’s bravery in telling me his gut feeling and the choice of paintings by the gallery solidified the direction.

Today, I feel more confident in the path to choose. And today starting again wasn’t so hard. An artist, whatever their craft, has to learn how to start and how to start over and over. They have to ask themselves what they must give up in order to start whether it is some other task that needs doing or some idea that needs to be released. It is the starting that is the devil. Today I started.

Me with Sharon and Sharon of Qbix (Two of the loveliest people one would ever hope to meet and work with. Many thanks to you both.)