I changed the painting in my living room yesterday. For the New Year. It may sound like a small change, but it was and is a big adventure. A friend came over and, after looking at my new work, suggested that a particular yellow painting should be hanging in my living room. I agreed. It is one of those IMPORTANT paintings (to me). So we took down the red painting (4’ x 5’) that has been hanging behind my piano for at least two years and brought the yellow painting (5’ x 7’) up. This also meant putting in new nails and changing the plant that would obstruct the new, much larger painting.
The result is shocking. The room is a different place, larger, more spacious, more welcoming. The painting itself is one that I feel holds within it a major, exciting shift in my work, a seminal painting, one from which I can keep learning. As silly as this might seem, it is as exciting as when I installed my new Miele dishwasher and would get up in the middle of the night to go down and look at it. An astonishing change, in that case, to something very sleek and understated. In this case, to something that tells a long rich story.
I was listening to Twyla Tharp, the dancer, choreographer, on CBC radio today talking about her new book, The Creative Habit. She says anyone can be creative. All you need is discipline, discipline to overcome laziness and fear. And to be really creative, challenge yourself, expand your repertoire. What used to lead me to make dramatic changes in my work every three or four years, now becomes more subtle yet important changes that keep me excited about what is happening and what will happen next.
This is a painting that comes out of a decision to take the borders off my work. A big decision that was brewing for two years. I needed the borders to contain what I was doing inside the painting itself. But then I seem to have outgrown them. Nevertheless, when I finally gave up the frame and borders that had originally been there to allow more freedom, I felt intense anxiety for a couple of weeks, until I grew into the greater freedom that not having them there created. Now that big change is part of my everyday painting experience.
Posted by leya at January 1, 2004 03:44 PM