Rain drumming on the studio roof, and music playing as I work; I’ve had a better day today, after a run of disasters. I’ve been working hard every day on paintings and drawings, all of which (except today’s) have ended up with ink or paint flung over them in desperation, or turned to the wall.
I cling to the notion that time spent painting is never wasted as long as one is honestly challenging one’s preconceptions and trying to be authentically experimental and open in a hunt for something true. I tell my students this all the time in the Life class, trying to get them to see that an afternoon spent crafting a slick, ‘nice’ (as they may see it) finished drawing might be of far less value than one in which a frustrating, messy time ends up with a crumpled, thrown-away piece of paper, if in the latter session they have really felt themselves stretched and challenged to look and see and work differently. Many, many sessions in my own studio – especially this week – end with no useful result in terms of paint on canvas that ‘works’. More often than I would like, a good passage in a painting is obliterated, to be replaced with something mediocre that I know cannot remain for long. It can feel dispiriting, but I can’t let it be. It’s only paint, it’s only canvas, it’s only time… don’t think about waste!
