Post Creative Let Down

Gateway by J. Binford-Bell

Creating a painting, I realized today when I at last finished my latest, is exhausting. And exhilarating. You want to shout, "I did that?" when a plan comes together and a painting achieves a marriage with the image you have carried around in your head. And then there is this huge let down not unlike drug withdrawal. Specifically withdrawal from speed.

Photography does not do this. It is so immediate in comparison and is not the manifestation of an internalized image but an image you internalize. Nor does painting in a formula manner. Yes, you may sit down to do your 14th church painting for a fair or a retail order and something surprising happens.

But to conceive of an idea for a painting. Refine it in your head over a number of days or weeks. Then finally commit the idea to paper and pencil, and at last to canvas. Only to go over the colors again and again in your mind before putting paint to canvas. That is a horse of a very different color. And not every painting an artist does is that sort of creative birth. But is is those paintings an artist wants to create.

Since I gave up painting for three to four art fairs a year and decided to stay home in my studio and paint for exhibitions and myself I find I am painting less but enjoying more of those wonderful creative births. But they do leave you rather drained and wondering if you can do it again.

I want to do six more paintings within the next two months. I want to do them for exhibits I wish to enter and to establish a base of more recent works. I did not paint for a while after leaving the fair circuit. It seemed there were enough paintings on the walls of my studio and I really didn't feel I had any more new ideas to generate. And I focused my energies on photography. But the muse is back. She was back in 2012. I am proud of the paintings I have done. I looked around the studio this morning and counted the works I would feel honored to have in a solo gallery show and was pleased. But an artist with her own studio needs enough depth to not empty the walls or pull work from other places or go back too far into the archives. Six more would be a good buffer. Which may be why Georgia O'Keeffe had 1000 paintings in her studio at the time of her death.

Gateway in the Binford-Bell Studio and Gallery

I am very happy to have this one completed today. Tomorrow I begin the sketch for the next one.

Comments

  1. Ruthie BenjaminJune 9, 2013 at 6:19 PM

    Beautifully done, as always - and interesting contemplation too - I can understand what you're saying internally, though I've only been able to experience it briefly in my life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJune 10, 2013 at 11:14 AM

    Wonderful, Jacqui. Such glorious colors!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f
Read more

Eagle Nest Dam

Image
Tour of Eagle Nest Dam Eagle Nest Dam is the largest privately built dam in the United States. It was begun by the Springer family in 1917 and completed in 1920. It and the reservoir beyond it one was privately owned by the CS Ranch which recently sold it to the state of New Mexico. Eagle Nest Lake is now a state park, but the dam and the waters in the lake are another matter all together. Water is well regulated in New Mexico especially during a drought. The lake is now at 25% of its normal capacity, and the water in the lake are water right lease holds of Raton, Cimarron, and historic ranches in the area like the UU Bar and the CS Ranch. Game and Fish department also get involved because the Cimarron River is an active fishery of the state. Our guide was a state engineer and the Gateway Museum secured permission of the land owners below the dam for us to gain access to the area. Some 100 locals and tourists attended this rare event. I have lived here almost twenty years and th
Read more