Initially, my intention was to name this blog On Beginning in order to create a sense of symmetry with an earlier blog I wrote called On Finishing. In that blog, I made the point that finishing a painting is much more daunting for me than starting one: Whereas I can begin it over as many times as I wish, I can only finish a painting once. Of course, when I wrote that sentence, I pictured in my mind the act of starting over, & over yet again, the same project, which, in truth, I have never done but which certainly is within the realm of possibility. Little did I understand the real implications of that statement, though.
One would think that On Beginning is a fairly logical title for a blog that describes what it’s like for me to start a new painting, right? Well, apparently not, for the part of my consciousness that observes, & sometimes micro-manages, what the rest of me is doing insisted on adding the word “again” to the title. I scoured about in my head for possible reasons why this would be so, when suddenly it occurred to me: “Again” is essential in order to convey the notion of a continuum of art-making because each new painting is not an isolated or random (new) beginning; it’s actually another attempt to achieve the same thing (again). Put simply, if rather simplistically, each of my paintings, though different, is one more link in the same chain.
French novelist Patrick Modiano, who won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature, describes in his acceptance speech how his feelings upon the completion of one book propel him forward to begin the next, until eventually, there exists an oeuvre, a body of work. The notion that one book begets the next resonates greatly with me for, after completing a painting, I always experience, to a greater or lesser extent, what I call an emotional hangover, the sole cure for which is starting yet another painting.
What is the nature of this “emotional hangover?” I suppose it’s the usual artist’s angst, the unhappy feeling that a painting maybe fell short of expectations, coupled with – fortunately! – the hope that the next one definitely won’t. Hope then mingles with curiosity about future outcomes. After a time, this curiosity grows strong enough to gain the upper hand & voilà, I begin a new painting…again.
Whether that new painting is a landscape, seacape or still life, whether it depicts peonies or boats at rest in a harbor, my goal is always to tell a worthwhile visual story & to tell it well. The degree to which I feel I’ve achieved this determines whether my emotional hangover will be mild or severe, whether it will be a vague uneasiness or a tearful meltdown or something in between. Now, could this drama surrounding the finishing of a painting actually serve a purpose, such as making sure that I will, in fact, begin again?
Hmmm, I’ll have to give that some thought…
“Nobel Lecture by Patrick Modiano.” Nobel prize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014.