There is always hope, as long as the canvasses are empty.
–Gustav Klimt
This quote from Gustav Klimt made me smile this morning, a little knowing smile. When I am getting ready for a show, such as I am now, the studio is initially filled with prepared empty canvasses of a wide variety of sizes, coated with layers of gesso and topped with a thick layer of black paint. They are everywhere, all propped up against any available surface that will support them.
Having them around is comforting, representing possibility. It is the hope of which Klimt speaks. Each blank canvas has the possibility of being a whole new world, a new experience, a new revelation. There is almost a hum of potential life coming from them.
But as the weeks and months pass and many of the canvasses are painted, taking on their new lives and identities, the supply of blank surfaces dwindles down to the point where there is now only a smattering of blank canvasses scattered around the studio. It is at this point when I get anxious, most likely from no longer being surrounded by those empty surfaces that have come to symbolize hope and potential for me.
It is at this point that I can begin to see the end of this painting session, that soon I will have to stop for a bit to ready the work, to photograph, to stain frames and varnish paintings to make them presentable for the show. This makes me a little glum because I am usually very hyped up from the momentum that has been building as the work for the show progressed. This makes me want to paint and push even more, to further explore all the new avenues that are opening up before me in the paintings in which I am working.
Looking around now and seeing just a few empty canvasses is a reminder of that coming point. It makes me pause in for a moment, anticipating that coming shift of gears, and for that moment I am a bit down. But reading Klimt’s words makes me smile, knowing that I just received a new shipment of canvas the other day which is waiting patiently downstairs to be prepped so that it soon can carry all my hopes and possibilities.
And the glumness fades.
This post originally ran back around this time in 2019. Some things are constants. I have added a few other Klimt paintings that didn’t appear in the earlier post.
Gustav Klimt- The Bride, 1918
Gustav Klimt- Church in Cassone
Gustav Klimt The-Sunflower, 1907
Gustav Klimt- Beech Grove I
Gustav Klimt- La Vergini
Gustav Klimt- Portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer
Redtree Times 