prismatic process[ing]
heavy cotton canvas and clumsy physics and finding my feet again
the past two months have been a blur of frantically painting little panels by the sea to soak up as much ocean light as possible before setting them aside for a mandatory two-week dry time and spending a short stint in the thrum of Ciudad de México.
as i move, i’m struggling with how to be an honest witness to the collective heartbreak of this time. more and more people see that what’s done to others abroad will come home to roost [and that amerikkka has always been this way]. i wish to speak, but i cannot rationally preach community while en route to the opposite pole, benefiting from the very systems that allow me to fly away.
to be any kind of useful witness, i have to find my feet. i’ve been crawling back toward an inner knowing i lost for a while. grateful for the space to finally remember my voice and how to work for it.
to get back to the vision: it’s been a process of studying the motion of the ocean and a puzzle of physically transporting the works and supplies. in relearning to paint what i see, i’ve been getting really honest with myself. as i improve, it is glaringly obvious that i wasted many years attempting to be palatable. the lack of rigor i’ve put towards study since leaving the big island seven years ago was due to many factors: working full time, insecurity, obstinance, trauma. i spent this time painting pretty colors without structure, falsely believing i could create something meaningful without the weight of value or the rules of light. i was ignorant of the fact that the “magic” i wanted requires a foundation of realism.
it feels wonderful and scary to dive back in.. a bit silly that i was stubborn for so long, but i suppose that’s how i developed a “style.” now i see the path: i need the realism first to then amplify with the pinks, sky blues, and light yellows i love. i wish to show the mass of the mountains and the prisms of the water. i want to portray the tiny, repeating patterns in the chaos and let the real become unreal.
the labor of this vision also involves the clunky physics of moving it. the use of cork slices between panels has been working quite swimmingly (knock on wood—we’ll see how they hold up after 24 hours of air travel)
these months of creating full-time are precious and limited, so i’ve decided to level up from my little art panels. i bought three square meters of heavy cotton canvas in Centro Histórico and bruised my knees slicing it into travel-sized pieces on our little apartment floor. mi esposo helped me roll and reroll the 36” x 46” canvases until i was convinced they were snug in the tube. holding my breath until i can shake them out and see that they’re wrinkle-free.
gazing out the plane window at Popocatépetl and towns tucked into green valleys is quelling my fretfulness over what tsa might do with my paints. while frantically searching for tape at five am this morning (the canvas tube’s lid popped off on the way to the airport), i noticed that my bag smelled faintly of solvent. now, sitting on the flight, i have this image looping in my head of an agent taking a whiff and deciding its contents are a threat. i could end up at our destination with no options to replenish my treasured tools. i will walk off this plane clinging to my tube like the one ring to rule them all and running towards baggage claim as if my paints were a long lost love.
i am acutely aware of how minuscule these anxieties are while the world feels like it’s being razed and people are [enter daily new horror here]. attempting to embrace the tension of choosing awareness while not panic spiraling (which also doesn’t help anyone). you can find me painting the fear away. up in the clouds for now - this liminal space leaves no room for distraction and always clears the brain static. i’m looking forward to settling into the quiet and portraying the light of long days. more to come.. thanks for being my witness. :)
update: arrived on solid ground with paintings and supplies in tow. my linseed oil leaked slightly, and one of my canvas panels needs to be flattened a bit, but nothing was tossed or ruined! unrolling the cotton canvas, happy as a clam. off to the hardware store!
