The Rain Season

Of Good and Bad:

We had an incredible week on the Oregon Coast. What beauty! (God lives at Cannon Beach.) And after all the glory a few moments stripped it all away. For a second I thought I lost Al which sent me into complete panic followed by a panic attack, insomnia and a pinched nerve in my sacrum. All previous beauty dissolved! How ridiculous! (It did help me enjoy homecoming.)

In response to your post, this is what I wrote to my students tonight:

All in all, I wanted to discuss this notion of 'not loving what you are painting.' It is a very important concept to observe and I'm glad it came up last week. We seem to be in the mindset of likes and dislikes most of our day. (Like, I really don't like this pain in my back.) What this does is it sets up binary opposites- things that relate but are on opposite sides. This is still within our mental constructs which sometime block creativity. We think we know. We label the plat. (I know it is green, it lives in the soil, etc.) But all these words stop us from really seeing the plant. (Seeing that entity in front of you stripped of all the labels.)

The still-life which wasn't still at all is a living entity- that changes, is form and color, is in relation to you.