Hurry Up and Watch The Paint Dry!

When I was a house painter working for contractors I was berated for not painting fast enough. Commercial painters need to move fast in order to make a profit. I was a good painter as far as quality went but not speed. Some foreman was always yelling at me, "Katlin! Hurry it up! Stop watching the paint!"  It's not that I wasn't capable of getting a job done quickly, but I couldn't help be connected to the paint, brush and surface; I liked to watch the brush dip into the bucket and the sound it made when it touched the painting surface. I was fascinated with how the brush created its own works of art with its thousands of tiny thin hairs running back and forth across endless shingles, doors and window frames. 

Needless to say, I didn't work long with the commercial painters but got a great reputation for doing extraordinary quality work for my own customers when I started my own business. People were willing to pay more even if it meant that I was camped out at their homes for extended periods of time. But there's no better feeling than standing back, looking at and taking pride in your work while appreciating all the materials both seen and unseen that went into the final project. 

Yesterday, I started a new woodcarving project and I was fascinated by the pieces that were carved away in order to create the deign. As curls and pieces of pine fell to the floor I couldn't help notice their own beauty and decided to collect them and keep them; each one its own finished work of art; together another, and after today's carving session more will be added to the collection. 

Art, the 'finished piece' is not just what lies between the frame, it's in everything: pencil shavings, eraser shreds, dried splats of colors atop a palette, rusted nails. I'm as excited today to carve away more pine as I am to see what sails to the floor in an unintended but perfectly executed work of Art.

The Simplicity Pump

 

"Keep it simple." How many times have you heard that? "Don't complicate it, keep it simple." I do like simple. Too many items on a restaurant  menu drive me mad. Too many check boxes on a medical claim form produce the same results. "Keep it simple stupid," an art teacher once told me. How insulting I thought at the time but the older I get the more I keep coming back to that wise phrase. 

The air pump pictured above is one example of simple. It's located at a gas station where I fill my bicycle tires. Not only does it cost just twenty-five cents to use compared with double or three times that amount elsewhere, it's simple to use and it seems to stay on forever. I know it sounds strange but every time I take the hose from its cradle I smile with pleasure. It's so simple: a quarter goes in the slot, air comes out the hose, my bicycle tires inflate. I am very grateful for this simple tool. (I do own two hand-pumps but they can't create as much pressure as the electrical ones do in the same amount of time.)

Alexander Pope said, "A work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left." The more I think about a painting or drawing project the less simple it gets. I've read recently of an artist who said that she has spent her entire adult life learning how to paint like a child again. Children do keep it simple until they start thinking like adults. 

As I paint and write I try to keep it simple by keeping critical thinking and judgements at bay. The same goes for walking the galleries at art museums. I'm not interested in the theory behind the paintings until I've been with a painting for a bit. If it interests me enough I may look further into the artist's thoughts or motivations behind her work. Too much talk about the craft complicates the experience for me.

So, like the simple twenty-five cent air pump I will try to keep my work simple by turning it into play just like a child.