Grounding thru Practice: letting paint be my teacher

I finally had a huge transformation of allowing painting to teach me, instead of trying to master painting.

Earlier this month i undertook part two of a four part painting series. My first egg painting residency was clunky. I was finding a sense of order with the flow of channeling paintings — where my part ends and collaboration meets. I foresaw what patterns i would need to inhabit in order to be successful, then quickly derailed myself by slipping into old patterns of behavior. After a day of rest and nervous system reboot, i returned to a more grounded execution of part one of the series, though still pushing myself a little harder than ideal.

While in the planning stages for part two of the series, my old patterns came into view. Before, i would begin with this vision in my head, as i often do with creative visual exploration. I wanted to manipulate paint, to master paint, to bend paint to my vision.. i willed paint to become this thing that i sensed in my head or my bodies. There was no space for curiosity. Then, during this residency, i really had a shift of like, there is wisdom in PAINT. /color and medium/. Paint has things to share with me. Up till now, i was being a unilateral partner to paint: showing up to take without opening up to receive.

When that hit, it seemed so obvious. Especially because opening to collaboration with Material is how my practice thrives. I allow my visions to express thru a multitude of mediums. So much of the way my ideas materialize becomes about what medium they itch to express thru. Meeting Medium as collaborative partner is already a deep woven part of my practice. If i want textural material and to work with what-is, i might express an idea thru upcycled fabric. If i want it to have a sort of crisp luminance of the cyber age i might design digitally. If i want emotional, expressive materiality that’s very about feeling, then i want to do this in paint. I feel like so much of paint is about flow: finding ease and flow with practice and mutual openness. (we have to change and let ourselves be changed, over and over. stagnation is a slow dying). And there is definitely something about material manipulation with paint — a factor of confusion for me as to the point of why i wanted to engage with paint. I was aiming for this unilateral imposing instead of mutual creation which involves decay (of expectations/iterations), constant change.

In the midst of feeling so called to this medium i’ve also felt a lot of frustration and ungroundedness historically when engaging. {failing to let the current flow thru (envision: figure-8)}. So when re-approaching this painting series, i did it with a spirit of inquiry. What is the reason i want to play with paint? What is it that i want to manipulate and move? In this case, it’s not my emotions, expressions and feelings themselves i aim to move. Rather to engage the ability to shift and combine materials with their own energetic spirits into something that mirrors, evokes, or contains ~ f e e l i n g : s e n t i e n c e : expressive symbols of form and color. All of painting is a metaphor. {The metaphor mind links us up to stardust and ether. In metaphor mind, we easily acknowledge the unseen space between two distant points and their sameness. S P I R I T U S ~ breath : is another such similar bridge}. The medium here — egg yolk — provided by the chickens on the land, brought forth a deeper layer of metaphor and meaning: Golden life-liquid of nourishment giving flow to the powdered earth minerals of pigment.

so this time i stayed with the paint instead of dissociating into to-do lists and incremental deadlines

Before, the process of trying to force paint to my will was terrible for me. I got sick trying to work my body to be outcome oriented.. to meet ends that i foresaw. I tried to override realities of linear time, process, or integration. Once i got the vision i was off running to the finish line — all about the outcome. I didn’t wanna care about the process. I wanted to zip forward, fast-forward to the end. What i found was i got sick in the middle and had to slow myself down. I had to take a day off and reboot my nervous system around the project in order to complete it. That was very humbling.

I’d initially planned to paint part two of the series last summer and had a false start. I wasn’t ready to be the conduit or the channel for a grounded/grounding painting exploring balance. I was dealing with a lot of out of balance learning experiences at the time.

Coming back to this phase, i again, knew the patterns i needed to inhabit to be successful and was more determined to stay the course. I felt both like the humble doer and the passive bystander, watching this very slow unfolding. I was watching the process in myself and outside feeling all the eager frustration of a halted racehorse with the awe of a satisfied baker. like “wow this is a really slow process.. woah we’re really in it..wow everything is being baked in”. I was with the meditation, the material, and what i was trying to infuse into the material during the process. I could be present to allow the paint and its movement to be a way i process and deepen awareness. I could take frequent breaks to cook and feed myself, to walk and stretch, explore, and be intimate with the land — everything my chronically ill, neuroqueer bodies needed to be a conduit to this painting. and it was BEAutiful. Instead of the two paintings i initially planned, the one painting is probably just a quarter of the way done. So its beautiful and im just reflecting on wow, intentioned creation takes a lot of time. It also feels more aligned. I feel finally able to meet paint in a sacred act of cocreation.

a poem:

painting is a sentience
a student of painting does not need a (human) teacher.
they are the learner - they are learning from paint.
when i stopped trying to master painting,
i could finally relax
to do the thing
i need to, am being asked to / want to do
to be the full open breathing channel
conduit for creation
collaborate with conditions and ideals alike
to create a magical convergence
holi plexus of unearthed energy birthing into being
to be present to
all that is
and infuse it with
all that could be
enuf to hold
us all thru
the raft of one cell body
percolating into timeless
effervescence