It’s Just Paint
This ends well, I think.
During the artist residency at Ucross that I just returned from, I had this feeling of being dull and empty. The residency was amazing. The place is amazing. The care for artists is amazing. I just felt like a wanderer, a drifter, like the land was tired of my looking at it. Not only did I feel completely devoid of ideas, but also that every idea that I’ve ever had was stupid. I just paint the landscape. I don’t have a cause that I champion, I don’t try to recruit people to my side, and I don’t involve myself with social issues. After being with people that are smart, involved, well-read, and passionate, I feel like I’m wasting my time. I just paint the landscape. I don’t have strongly held political positions, and if I did, I couldn’t articulate them well. I don’t have human interest stories that you should care about or even a reason that you should care about me or what I do. I haven’t finished reading a book in a long time, and I haven’t chosen a book that would “blow my mind”…. ever. No news. No articles. No intellectually stimulating content. No diverse points of view, and I don’t apologize for my existence or for anyone else’s. I’ve nothing meaningful to share with or impact the world - in art or conversation. I just paint the landscape.
I often think of why I keep painting. Such was the case before I left for the residency while finishing up a bath. Why do I put out the money for supplies to make something that few will ever see? Wouldn’t it be better to reserve that money, to put it toward something that my wife and I both can benefit from? We have lots of needs, after all. I feel the weight of selfishness all the time manifested as a drive to produce something of worth.
Of.
Worth.
Of worth - to who? I am drying off now, dividing my attention between the voices within me.
“Your residency doesn’t help anyone but yourself. Two weeks is extravagant.” “Why do you even paint?” “What do you think is going to come of all this?” “This will all end up in a yard sale. Then what of your expensive frames? You ought to be ashamed that you would let people down over and over.” “Your life was saved at great expense and this is how you repay them?
I add my own voice silently, pushing back while drying off my arms, “I’m trying to get somewhere. My motives haven’t changed from when I started. I want to be a whole person. Unified. As for others, it would also be nice if something I made snapped people to attention - showed them that they are alive right now, not in the past, and that what they do and believe matters.”
“How does making a painting do that? You tell yourself all of this so you can keep hobby painting. You don’t even try to sell. Too proud? How can it be anything but a waste.”
Maybe none of it matters.
How can any of it matter?
There are more important things.
How can I possibly achieve anything at all, especially with these crude tools and even more primitive, unoriginal ideas?
“It’s just paint.”
I see myself looking at the towel in my hands, and I quietly speak to the room, “It’s just paint.”
I immediately hear a different voice at my shoulder -
“You’re just clay.”
I’ve never been rescued mid-air from a fall, but that’s what it felt like. The One Who Loves Us entered the conversation and all other voices were stopped. Where I would question how can ground up rocks - dirt - and oil and hair have any impact on anything at all, He reminded me of who we are - that we are basically the same elements, wondrously made, and that, as we were given the breath of life, so can we invigorate our surroundings if we go in humility, honesty, and Love.
Saying “It’s just paint” is like looking at someone you deeply love and believing that they are just clay - just a flesh sack full of fluids and bones - just a biochemical reactor - “just” this, “just” that. But no. We are clearly more than that. Life has mystery still even though our molecules can be described. Life has meaning still, even though much of it seems random. Life is purposeful still, even when we are tempted to despair. Whatever my efforts may be for future people, they are for me today an effort to learn how to be whole. I suppose that is enough reason to continue. Of course, I do want to make pictures that peers will appreciate and I do hope that one day I can make something of all of this - that there will be a “payoff” for my family who continues to endure me, and I do hope that one day a painting I make fulfills its hoped destiny.
“SO WHAT, SETH? GET TO IT….”
We live as though there will be a “next time.”
I applied to Ucross with no idea of how small the acceptance rate is. I only knew that I was able to apply, so I did. Same for art shows. We have one life to give. I (and several of you readers) have chosen to make painting a big part of the journey. It helps us somehow. We cannot afford to think that “next time” will be available to us. This is the day.
Enter transparency. If you know that time is passing quickly, why bother with facades?
We could all spend our time trying to be like someone else - to carve, or sculpt, or paint, or sing, or act, or decorate, or - whatever, but being honest with ourselves about what we actually want is the path everyone looks for. The work is the shortcut. Persistence helps create the “next time,” but we must be transparent. No looking around. Here’s how this works for me and how it ties into the title of this post:
I know my Premise by heart (see home page) and I believe life has purpose. Keeping these two things in mind and adding an honest appraisal of what I want out of painting helps me apply paint today. My (hopefully) honest appraisal of what I want includes the risk that I may depart from representational painting one day. That might be a problem and it is certainly a risk, but I need to be transparent with myself (isn’t that weird?). I only have this life, so I can’t rely on a “next time” to be honest about what I’m after.
I am not aiming for sentimentality. I don’t want the viewer to look backward or to the future.
My aim is not to make paintings that are windows or transports to another place, but just the opposite - they are invitations to be more present in the here and now - this space, this time, this life, my life, your life. I am only concerned with the surface and space contained within the frame and within the person. Imagine slowly coming to the realization that you have been walking around in a haze but you start to see more clearly - and you see a bear watching you. That manner of being “awake” and fully aware of the finitude of my life is what I’m after, and it is meant for me. I want people to get past the “pretty” (even though that is a fine enough goal) and eventually see only the surface of my paintings: the striations, scrapes, gouges, sweeps, pulls, splats - all the paint - together with the arrangement and color shapes - and become aware of their existence NOW, that there is a great similarity between what I have made and what they themselves are. It’s just paint, but my hope is that it becomes prayer, that it somehow rises out of itself when the viewer chooses to linger with it. It’s just paint, but the hope for transcendence is in every smudge. To some, we are just molecules, but we gather affections that seem to transcend biochemistry. To some, we are just energized dirt and fluid. To some, art is frivolous. Both are clearly wrong.
We are wondrously made and are given the breath of life. The Pietá is just a rock. The Psalms are just words. Family is just biology. Goodness is just an idea. Ideas are just electrical signals.
It’s just paint.
You’re just clay.
Thank you for reading. You may comment below. I hope to officially announce my participation in a big show with the next newsletter, so if you or someone you know might be interested in that and more insight into my inner workings, please enter your email in the sign-up box below. I hope to show all the paintings there as well.