diary...

i've got a morning wake-up ritual that is working wonders for me, let me tell ya. i get up, put the coffee on, and grab my notebook and pen. i spend the first hour (at least) of my day writing. no matter how early i've got to get up, i get up early enough to do this. it helps me whittle down the plans for my day so that i don't try to take on too much, but it also gives me a hefty confidence boost to try things that i'm daunted by or scared of. largely, the morning writing time serves as a jumbo pep-talk and encourages me to maintain my focus, continue doing the work i'm doing, and not to feel defeated by circumstance.

right away, i started writing about the new painting i started and just art stuff in general. i've been feeling a bit discouraged with oil painting specifically lately, and writing about my frustrations really clarified a few things for me.

not to keep harping on the color issue, but it's really been bothering me and choking my practice as a whole. this is part of the rant i wrote this morning:

"...the important thing is to get painting again. obviously, the turn to color hasn't worked for me and i need to get back to what feels right. i just want to work... do GOOD work and not worry about anything else. black and white is where my heart is and it took me a long time to get to this place with my work. i hated my paintings for too many years to welcome that horrible feeling back. i simply do not like colorful paintings and i don't want to make them. that's not what my work needs, it's not what my subject matter is about, it's just not where i'm at right now. i want to make big, beautiful, black oil paintings that are sincere, intimate in spite of scale, maybe a bit hard to look at sometimes but stunning nevertheless... haunting and invasive. i don't want to sugar coat my work. it's not about making pretty pictures. it never has been. it's about honoring the subject. it's about doing what's right for the work. it's about Jon Benet Ramsey and Shura Hughes. It's about Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. it's about my sibling's childhood, my childhood, my 5 year old nephew... it's about longing and loss and trauma and searching out a genuine comfort. it's about becoming safe, being okay. it's about resilience. it's about trusting the path, trusting that GOOD really does exist. it's about clearing away the rubble and making a home, finding poetry in the smallest, darkest corners. it's about practicing compassion and cultivating opportunities for understanding and affection. it's about coming to terms with harshness, dealing with it as a fact, and getting through it. it's about stopping the horror... it's about so much more than whether or not i paint in color. it's not about decor or pleasantries. the work isn't meant to be polite, it's meant to be sincere... and that's not nearly the same thing. not even close..."

after that, i went directly to my little studio and got to work. i put down a layer of paint on the new canvas and then forced myself to stop - respect the process - but i was still so in love with the act of painting at that point that i went back to work on the big ol' yellow painting i started months ago. i'd turned it to face the wall because i was so utterly frustrated by the painting that even looking at it seemed to leech any kernel of enthusiasm i may have had for oil painting. but today, i took my own advice about going back to my beloved black and white aesthetic and white-washed the entire painting. talk about working wonders. i was able to see the painting's potential again. i worked on it for hours and it's finally starting to morph in to a painting i'm excited by and love looking at. break-through! yay! the power of a diary. sometimes just getting it out, down on paper, is the only tool a person needs.