From my seat here, I am looking across the studio at a canvas on the easel. It was nearly finished when yesterday’s painting session came to an end. It was just at that point where it was making the vital transformation into something more than just paint smeared on a surface. The most exciting and gratifying part of the process for me.
Thoughts of this piece haunted me all last night and were there waiting for me this morning. I was envisioning where my next move on the canvas would come and how it would blossom after that.
I found myself eager to move quickly through the woods and over to the studio.
Almost compelled, as though I had no choice in the matter. That painting was demanding my presence in its service, like I was serving some sort of strange psychic bondage to it. As though it was something that needed to released for my own wellbeing, and the sooner it was done, the better.
The difference, of course, that this is a voluntary thing, a welcomed binding to service. I don’t feel restrained by this.
Instead, I feel freed by the ability to follow this impulse.
It’s a hard thing to describe. And to be frank, I don’t have the time this morning to try to do so any further. That painting is waiting to be released out into the world from its own bondage. Got to go set it free.
Here’s a fitting song, I Feel Free from Cream from many moons ago, back in 1966. It has a real atmospheric, cinematic aspect to it. The painting at the top has no relevance here at all. It’s just an early piece from around 1994 that I call Winter Park. I include it this morning just because it pleases me and I am free to do this.
Enjoy.
Redtree Times 