It’s been a while since I’ve had my hands in paint . . . a few months to be exact. Some days ago I went through my pots of paint and consolidated some colors for fear they would dry out. I mixed in water and medium and at the end of the day marveled that I was content to do nothing more than get ready to paint. My pots were all lined up with a circle of the color inside smudged on top of the black plastic lid.
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| Schism |
I haven’t worried that I haven’t been painting as much as I’ve been curious about the lack of impulse to exress what I’ve been experiencing in my life. A while back I was having a conversation with a friend of mine. He asked me if I had been painting and when I replied that no, I had not, he said from his experience as a life long artist . . . “Sometimes it’s a good thing to take a break.” I have been taking a break that ended quite unexpectedly yesterday, when I heard that I wasn’t needed at the gallery where I am currently employed. I work there very happily doing a little of everything from hanging shows and repairing walls to general curatorship. Suddenly, an entire day opened up. A day in which I had not planned on being home. Without much forethought I put on my painting clothes and pulled out canvasses.
The very minute I turned toward my pots of paint I felt an inexorable pull to vibrant red and glossy black. Before long I found myself elbow deep in brushes, scrapers, rags, water, and paint. I lost track of the time in light of the deeper track of my senses responding to an internal energy that I’d been housing for a while . . . Pressure. That’s what I painted yesterday, pure pressure. It’s what I have been feeling all around me, and more specifically in my household as cancelled contracts and lost employment bear down upon our spirits and threaten daily existence when bills cannot be paid and creditors are calling like hungry wolves chasing down prey. I painted the view from the bottom of my household’s financial reality--meaning all accounts dry and debt rising while working as hard as I can.
Recently my enthusiastic border collie Callie has taken to digging in the sand at the water’s edge. I am fascinated by her determination to outwit the encroaching waves by digging faster and faster, only to be puzzled when the inevitable surge rolls in and fouls her work. She is tenacious and doesn’t give up as the fragile walls of sand relinquish their form and spill into the bottom of the hole. With a sandy face and steely resolve she gets back into her digging with more energy than before. I watch her and can see her tenacity is in vain. I wonder at my own. I am working as many hours as I can in the gallery and that’s helping the situation. I love the work, and am under no illusion--it’s not enough and it’s no one’s fault. Not enough by a long shot, and the pressure of the sands of debt caving in over my head feels as hopeless as Callie’s hole in the sand on the beach in spite of her efforts.
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| Detail |
I know the view from what feels like the bottom of my finances isn’t as bad as it can be. It’s quite possible I haven’t hit the real bottom yet. I still have, for now, a roof over my head, food and water, electricity and transportation. I am very aware that it could be much worse in much the same way that reports of a recovering economy are overshadowed by rising failures in business and growing foreclosures. I’m still very fortunate, and yet I’m used to having some savings, a house, some retirement, investments. I’m used to being able to go out to eat and buy a nice bottle of wine and flowers on a whim without concern. Today, all that’s changed as savings, house, retirement, and investments are gone as well as superfluous vehicles, and furniture that are being sold well below value just to survive.
Today, in the struggle with the pressures I have a new perspective gained when there really is nothing in the checkbook while needing groceries, the car payment, and monthly insurance premiums. While the debilitating process of foreclosure is raging on I have friends traveling the world, others building additions onto their already palatial homes, and still others buying new boats. At times I feel like Jennifer Anniston’s character Olivia in the movie, “Friends with Money.” Just as educated and competent, yet working for a low wage at whatever needs to be done, and squeezing out the last little bit from every tube of facial cleanser while her peers, though concerned cannot really grasp the reality of her dilemma . . . and how could they? Jennifer wears a puzzled look throughout most of the movie as if trying to make sense of her life, her work, and her relationships where nothing seems to add up.
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I’m not suggesting anyone is wrong for what they have, and yet at times in the quiet hours of the night I ask myself what I’ve done wrong. It isn't that I haven't had things to learn about the choices I've made. I believe life offers up material for learning in all things . . . and sometimes things just don't make sense. Perhaps I could show the same kindness I lavish on others to myself. Driving to work I often see an elderly man on a particular street corner holding up a sign for spare change, and I have compassion, not judgment. Opening up my email I click on a link and watch a video of a Japanese airport being wiped off the map from the recent tsunami, and I have compassion. More and more I am mystified by the range of things and feel the pressure of conflicted energies, a heaviness bearing down from all sides. There is only so much I can do about that which is coming from without . . . I can cease the beatings coming from within.
That what this artist is thinking about today . . .
About the painting . . . Like a moth to the flame my hands flew to the pots of black and red paint at war with each other on my canvas . . . Biting back at each other under the pressure of what feels like a tidal wave of looming uncertainty. I fear I'm losing while giving my all. This piece is a raw, gritty story of the compression felt while enduring losses, a window into the burden of unrelenting pressure. I have other stories too, stories of flow, increase, love, and joy. Somehow they all fit together. Those are stories and paintings for another day. Facing into this canvas it's all about the pressure.