What can I tell you?

 Painting outdoors at the Painting in the Spirit of Helen Frankenthaler workshop

blasted my sensibilities.





 

I don't want to paint the way I've been painting for the past 2 years.  Last Saturday, I watched students pour and spread paint with foam brushes, squeegees, huge house painting brushes, and wadded up plastic. Big plastic drop cloths were everywhere. It blew me away that we have the choice to labor and struggle or allow the flow of paint to carry us along on a ride of freedom and awe. 

 

Now the question is, "What do I do with all of these paintings I've begun, the ones I'm working on continually without resolution?"  I don't want to toss them out.  I won't go back to the old style of working.  The either/or of this proposition reminds me there is the MIDDLE WAY.

 

 

The MIDDLE WAY is the way I find in meditation.  It is spacious and grounded, infinite in its allowing opening and acceptance of what comes up.  Then I return to the breath, the body, the space in the gap between thoughts and ideas, plans and concerns.

 

I've always wondered how I'd integrate my MEDITATING WITH THE BODY practice (teacher is Reggie Ray, PhD) and my painting.  It's been a conscious effort over the past 2 1/2 years. It's not ike I haven't played with the process.  However, this weekend offered a clearer direction: Color Field painting in the Spirit of Helen Frankenthaler is much more than a conceptual, cerebral approach to expressing the pulse of life.

 

Okay, what now?  Jesse Reno suggests finding what you like in a painting and placing a frame around it with paint.  Then find what you don't like and let it go, get rid of it.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong).  That's not Color Field painting, but it is a place to start with the paintings half-finished in my studio. 

 

Any new pieces will be pour and slather, sprinkle and tilt.  Let's see what happens!