I sat in this seat on this patio all day yesterday with an excited befuddlement. Staring at the vast complexity and overwhelming information of the natural world, my immediate response was to paint it.
But how to paint it became the question.
Did I want to translate it? Elevate it? Well there’s ego in action right there-the wanting to reformulate and “capture” the already perfect. Like trapping a tiger in a zoo, I wanted to put a ribbon on it. A ribbon, I now realize, that would bind it and cut off its very circulation. Stifling it, making it nameable and thus mundane. Such is ego, trying desperately to make the extraordinary into the mundane so it (ego) can claim victory. Such unbelievable perversion.
Did I want to tell you how it feels or what it looks like?
I have been thinking a lot about my job. My job as a painter and experiencer of the world. Yesterday’s sit-fest led me to believe that trying to capture it all is just not possible by me. At least today, with my current aptitudes and knowledge. Nor in this adventure do I have the linear time available to capture it.
The only effective way for me to proceed is to narrow my field of view. In narrowing my field of view I can expand my vision. I can listen intently to what is right in front of me, lasering my senses to that one moment and be enveloped in the language only that object, in that space, at that moment can transmit.
I want to celebrate it all. I want to have the capacity to absorb it ALL and translate it meaningfully. But really I don’t think I do. As with a mouth too full of food, it is a race to consume it. I would rather a single appropriately portioned bite that I can savor and celebrate.
Also, I was considering, would you get out of it what I do? Certainly not. Would what you get from my experience be sufficient enough for you? Enough for you to have pleasant thoughts and feelings about giving my efforts your time and attention? Or enough for you to contemplate the vast perfection of the natural world? I do not know.
So my job as a painter is to deepen my understanding of each moment. Not to exploit it, but to exalt it. To hone in on what is spectacular to me about the particular moment. And over time, as I gain agency, to expand my view to encompass more information. I have no need to disrespect the moment, quite the contrary. I want to exalt it and share my enthusiasm and joy and wonder.
Because, I am an Exaltationist painter.