I’m taking a painting class. That’s hard to admit. I’ve been painting for decades. But I’ve hit a wall. It’s not a new wall. It’s a wall that’s been around a long time. Usually I skirt it. Or ignore it and hope it goes away. Or I try to paint my way around it. But, lately I’ve been doing a lot of meditating and have come upon some life-changing realizations about who I am NOW , which of course shed clarifying light upon past misconceptions about the “who I am”s of past “NOW”s. So it is that I found myself at the wall. First, I hit it….I figuratively pounded on it for a while and then had a good cry over it’s impenetrability. Over it’s existence, and it’s insistence. Then I decided to just be with it for a while. And that’s when I signed up for the painting class.
It’s a fabulous class, taught by a wonderful woman who knows painting, knows color, knows process. And her methods are completely different than those I’ve used for years. The wall got bigger on the first day of class. But I stayed with it. And today was the second class. And I stayed at the wall. And I painted.
So, the wall isn’t so scary anymore, learning to paint using a new process, feeling like a kindergartener, THAT is scary. But it’s EGO scary. That’s all. I can handle that. The wall, it turns out was Fear that I don’t know what I’m doing. Taking the class, I admit that on some level, I don’t. Admitting what the Fear is generally makes it shrink. Also, really, are any of us ever done? Do I really want to say, “I’m an artist and I’ve learned all I need to learn, now I’m just going to paint (or collage) along on my merry way.” How dull I would become. How dull I became there at that wall. Pretending it didn’t exist. Pretending knowing everything was everything.
I have MUCH to learn… and how like LIFE it feels, climbing over that wall; and leaving it in the past.
Next post: a little something about starting over that I learned from making fiber collages...