It is time.

 

     Well, September has arrived, and so has summer it seems. Hot, humid and sunny, finally, and I am grateful for the warmth and the sun, even it is on it's way out. Yesterday Joseph, Desmond and I drove over to the space with the six canvases strapped to the roof of the car and brought them inside and up onto the stage. We pulled them out of their cardboard boxes and lined them up. They barely fit side by side and I was glad I hadn't bought ten after all which had been my original plan. Ten months and ten paintings made sense. But they are big and so they were not cheap and they came in a box of three so I got two boxes. They seem enormous and they are new, clean and white. They are pure potential.
    I was talking to a friend today and said, this is the best part really, the beginning, the canvases are blank. They still might be the six greatest paintings I have ever painted. Or the worst. Or, more likely, something in between. It is all to come and from where I'm standing it is exciting, and scary and a still a bit of a surprise. Like anything that is new, you hope for the very best and the very best is possible. As time goes by, the very best may be whittled down to something else.
    I feel like I have some big expectations and have been thinking that I should probably reel myself in a bit and just allow myself this time, these blank canvases, the space, the paint, the experience to be what it will be, without pressure. Pressure to paint something amazing. Or even "good". Maybe they will be great. They might be terrible, or mediocre. I hope to try to look at it more like 10 months of me having a place to go and be alone, to think, to breathe, to be creative and to remember what it was like to spend hours painting. It is a real gift to be able to do this. To have chosen to do this. I don't think it will be easy, but maybe it will be. I am not so sure what it will like at all. Will it be like detoxing? Will I want to run out the door? Will I have a hard time being still? Detoxing from the need to get things done? Practical things, things on my list, things that "need" to be. Paintings don't need to be painted. Not by me anyway. I just want to paint. It is just desire. I wonder if it will be hard to let myself just be there. And be free. From 9:30 until 3:00. A window of freedom. Like a ride.
    Sometimes painting is a struggle. When it's not working. When it doesn't look the way I want it to. I feel like I am not a very knowledgeable painter. Most of what I know I have sort of fudged or guessed and I make it up as I go along. Most things I do in life, I do this way.
    Most paintings I have painted, I have hated midway through. And I push through until I come out on the other side and like them in the end. I wonder if it will be hard to stop at 3:00 to pick up Desmond at school. Probably some days it will. My mother was a writer and she scheduled her own  hours. She said it was better to stop working when she was in the middle of something because it was easier to pick it back up the next day. She had a calender with blocks of time marked off that said, "write".  Her studio was a little room in our attic with a couple of windows and built in bookcases and a desk with her word processor, later, her computer. I still dream about that little office, studio of hers. A light at the top of attic stairs.
    So, these are my six big blank canvases, on an otherwise empty stage. Already a metaphor.  Although I'm not sure what it is exactly. What a wonderfully odd place to paint, behind a velvet curtain on a stage in an old parish hall of a church. I don't think I could have thought of anything better really. Something about it is just right. It is already a story. And I feel like this old wooden stage will be watching me and enjoy having me there. And we'll share a sandwich.
    Desmond starts school tomorrow, but only for a half day. I think on Thursday, I will go back and start to cover the walls and floor with some plastic drop cloths. Bring a few things over. In the meantime, I am working on making decisions about backgrounds. Choosing from photographs I have taken this summer. I'll have to print them out and buy paint and paint brushes. Maybe on Friday I will make my first marks. And then we're off and running.