As I’ve pointed out in the past, I almost always feel a bit out of sorts in the aftermath of a show. It doesn’t matter how the show itself fared. There is always an awkward, nervous lull that takes place in the days afterward, a feeling of uncertainty marked by a questioning of my direction and my purpose. The certainty and confidence that builds in the weeks leading up to a show fades quickly away as the “What next?” questions jump to the forefront. The relative emptiness of the studio which felt so liberating and filled with potential after the show was delivered now seems like a cold void and sends me scurrying, looking for something familiar that will fill this void.
If I were to make an analogy, it would be that I am driving along and have suddenly knocked the gearshift into the neutral position. The engine races and the momentum going forward begins to decrease quickly. Or maybe I have even knocked the shifter into reverse because at these points I often turn to going through my old files, taking in images of older work, much of it done before I was showing publicly.
A lot of it is rough but some shows the hints of possibility that I know fed my appetite at the time. I find it very comforting to revisit this work, marveling at both how far and how I little I have come in the years since. The things that excited me in the work then do the same for me now. We evolve but basically remain the same at the core.
The piece at the top always catches my eye and makes me pause over it. I remember the struggle at that time to find a voice and the searching that went with it. I thought that this might be the direction of my work at the time. It was liquid and loose and the face emerged from a puddle of pigments almost on its own. It was one of the first times I felt as though I were divining rather than painting, letting the paint dictate the direction. I felt like I was only along for the ride, helping facilitate the whole thing. It’s a difficult thing to describe but it was a vivid moment, one that is right there when I look at this image now.
Maybe that is why I revisit these piece at these times, trying to recapture that sense of wonder that was always at the surface in that early work. The excitement I feel in the studio now is as powerful but it is a different type of excitement. Those early moments were giddy with the possibility of entering an unknown realm whereas now I am simply excited to be tapped into a vein that I realize is there.
As I say, it’s hard to describe. But it has become part of my process, a way of moving from stage to stage.
Okay, back to my therapy. I can’t move on until I go back a little more…
Redtree Times 
I can’t help but think of this, from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding”:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
And lo, while I was searching for that I discovered I also had tucked into my files the first paragraphs of Merton’s “Seven Story Mountain”. Here’s the first one – Samadhi almost made the first sentence!
How the valley awakes. At two-fifteen there are no sounds except in the monastery: the bells ring, the office begins. Outside, nothing, except perhaps a bullfrog saying “Om” in the creek or in the guesthouse pond. Some nights he is in Samadhi; there is not even “Om”…
How true are those words from Eliot!
i like that analogy of being in full throttle then suddenly neutral or reverse! i could hear the engine’s protest!
i always enjoy my down time, and i lose myself in my favorite books or a new one) or i garden or do nothing except watch nature like a lazy cat in a sunny window! sometimes i am quite spent, and i go into a hibernation and then incubation… other times it seems that i roll from one to the next, though without a break, i am usually hit with fatigue.
a two-day break found me building/repairing a fence before leaving on a 2-week or longer road trip. i’ll have a balance between work and society and look forward to this change of routine!
sorry i’ve been absent. internet options are often not the best here! hope the week is good to you! z
Thanks for the good wishes, Z. I think these little ups and downs in momentum are part of most artists’ lives. Knowing that and keeping balance in one’s life makes it more tolerable.
My first reaction was . . . what’s FDR doing on GC Myers’ blog?
I often think of FDR when I see this piece. I just wish his cigarette-holder had appeared…