Experimentation & Epiphany

nobody@vox.com(Liza Myers) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:21:40 -0300

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
- Scott Adams

quotation from http://www.artquotes.net/

I may be in the middle of a mistake right now, but I am fascinated by the process. One never knows until some time in the future whether one's time is judiciously spent. O'Keeffe threw away heaps of canvases, those that she deemed unworthy or unsuccessful.
I've been pouring and scraping and spattering paints which sounds completely wild, but it's actually very deliberate and intentional. The question is now what to do with these luscious, sensuous and dynamic surfaces.
They're piling up.

Heart Nest II acrylic on canvas, 30" x 40" finally finished

For now they are spread around the studio staring at me... many small secrets. The muse isn't talking. I just have to keep the faith that "way will open," a Quaker expression from my childhood that has proved true to me in my own non-dogmatic fashion.
If one allows the time for the answer to emerge it usually does, based on many factors- experience, training, logic, doggedness, hard work. It can be an active process, or an epiphany.
I love the Merriam Webster definition of epiphany: (1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure

However, being buried and surrounded by incomplete projects can be overwhelming and stultifying. Ideas flow much more quickly than I am able to test them.
I have a practical, urgent need to FINISH things.
One thing at a time as much as possible, with the reward of experimentation as a tantalizing carrot.
Here's one that I finally finished. It is also an experiment... to put the nest on pulsing color.
Completion is my word for the year.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

A Musing Artful Meanders

Experimentation & Epiphany