I have managed to have a couple of nights in the studio in the past two weeks! It is so good to have wet brushes again! I have just been playing with nothing specific in mind, no plan. It is invigorating on so many levels that I have resolved not to let as much time pass between studio time as I have. I have missed that part of myself that fully engages with experimental purpose. So much of ordinary life has some element of planning or expectation, just by the nature of the repetition of our every day existence that to be free from outcome and in a way, I guess a release from responsibility is such welcome relief.
Life has been particularly large of late, as I have mentioned our impending oversea’s move is drawing closer, along with it a final layer of things to let go and people to already miss. Such emotionally intense days. Having said that for the most part, it has been wonderful and even when there seems a lot to do, it is still rewarding to be pushed.
Usually I have at least 3 or 4 nights painting a week. With the business of late, I have been lucky to paint once a fortnight. Not so much for lack of time, as energy. With Aran already in Dallas, my nights are my own once the girls are asleep, but I have chosen less energetic down time. The painting often provides me with more energy long term but in short spurts it can be very intense and requires a certain energy level to begin with. Many recent nights I have a plan at 6pm to get into the studio and have some fun but by 8pm when the youngest is tucked up in bed, I am over the day. Full but spent.
This is a new way of being for me. I have always made time for painting. It has been sheduled in to shape a regular practice. I figured that if I want to do it as a full time persuit,then I should treat it as such. Not neccessarily 9-5 but hours that suit the family and the flow of other important things. This was to bring about a discipline to the amount of activity. If you don’t schedule it, it doesn’t happen and it takes a certain amount of hours committed, before something magical appears!
I have found I am a much nicer, better adjusted person, when I have a regular practise going on. A flow of out, that allows me to process my everyday and so on. Moods being shifted as they are translated on to the canvas. I seem to have to many things going on in my head if I don’t keep up the release. It’s similar to the process of a job that seems overwhelming, until you write it down in parts, a plan, a todo list that helps you feel focused and gives some form of order and release.
So; after playing the last couple of nights with Australian Grey, Titanium White, Payne’s Grey and Pilbara Red, I make a pact with myself to remain painting regularily regardless of being in the midst of a life changing, oversea’s, family move! The studio has always been the final room to be packed up in any move before. This may be a bigger move but maybe all the more reason to paint my way through the process!