When I started this painting my daily life was feeling pretty rough. There were big worries and concerns as well as a general feeling of dis-ease.
Painters paint for a ton of different reasons: the object or scene is pretty, we have an emotional connection to the subject, putting food on the table. One of the reasons I paint is because it helps me sort myself out. There are things I can express in paint that are too much for conversation or too ineffable to be constricted by words.
The latter was the genesis of this painting. In times of deep transformation, painting is my therapist. In truth it is a mirror, as is the world around me. It is easiest to hear the truth from something I have painted sometimes. Paintings are a great barometer of my mental, spiritual and emotional health.
Keep dropping the paint brush? Time to take a nap or eat some food. If my palette is a mess, despite my best efforts, odds are my spiritual gyroscope is akimbo, meditation is a good move. Can’t make the hand do what it needs to do to execute what my brain tells it? Time for some soul searching to discover what is Real.
So this painting was a response to some pretty tough sledding which I was determined to get through in as healthy a way as possible. No, really- an almost life-sized nude of me wrapped in plastic WAS healthier than some of the other options.
In my desire to manifest a new reality for myself I chose to use painting as the vehicle to make that happen. Ordinary Life is the first painting in my series based on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. I intended to use the cycle as a way to lift myself out if the morass I found myself in. An outward expression and proclamation of my journey and progress through the cycle.
The paintings would propel my personal journey.
And you know what? It really did just that. This painting was hard going for me. I got in my head. I became horribly self conscious. I became timid and fell suffocated. And every single bit of that showed up in the painting.
Painting is the microcosm of our greater state of being.
And I powered through, finally finding a spot to stop and rest.
One of the questions artists get asked a LOT is: “How do you know when it is done?” My answer is that the painting tells you. So this version of this painting is done for me. The thought is not complete and there are some technical painting issues I would like to correct, but not on this canvas.
I am going to consider this a study, even though it is 48”x72”- a bit big for a study. Perhaps it would be more productive to consider it an object lesson of what happens when I am not painting from strength.
For all its pluses and minuses I consider this a successful piece. I no longer feel bound by my daily life, I learned a great deal about myself as a human and as a painter.
While there have been some VERY strong reactions to this painting, I am happy that I made it. It serves as a sign post of where I have been and do not ever have to return if I do not want to.