Recently, I have been trying to focus on the source of emotion during the act of painting. The connection between any form of art and emotion is always present. The most common thought is that the creative act touches or in some way is in contact with emotion. This relationship is not to be taken for granted but I personally have never really placed much importance on identifying it in greater detail.
In the past few paintings, I have been thinking about exactly which emotions I experience while painting. The practice of Meditation has helped me in this task. Daily meditation helps me to filter out all of the noise inside my head and guides me to a clearer state of concentration. Applying this practice to painting has unearthed a simple discovery of exactly where my emotion lies during the act of painting.
While painting, I am manipulating the paint on a surface and I am totally immersed in the challenge of finding ‘solutions’ for the harmony of the painting. In other words, I am conscious of an intuitive search for the right balance of what I see in front of me and what I am able to produce with the paint. Ninety percent of this activity is searching and manipulating physically the paint; reacting rather instinctively to each touch of paint. The other ten percent is the joy of finding that harmony. Yes, definitely a sense of joy. It is passing and ephemeral but it is also deep and vital.
I am not ‘joyful’ during the entire activity nor am I ‘joyful’ for the end result of the painting. It is only a drifting, slight-of-hand emotion that permeates my being for an instance when what I am looking at outside of me, between the painting itself and the subject matter, strikes a balance with what my inner eye perceives and desires to express in paint.
