Several weeks ago, a friend and fellow art teacher asked me to write something for her students. The prompt was, "Why paint?"
I paint because I find the act of painting artful. I wouldn't go so far to call myself an artist, as I hate acknowledging the necessary pretentiousness in pursuing the lofty goal of art-making, but I'm certainly a picture painter. Despite my efforts to create collections of work, sell my pictures, and other indulgences in "artist-type" behavior, I really only care to paint because I find the process very satisfying. Deciding to be a painter—in light of smartphones, other snowballing technological advancements, and a culture less attuned to flat pictures on the wall—is a fairly ridiculous endeavor if a means to an end. But if painting pictures is the desired outcome, rather than whatever may result from finished paintings, I feel myself closer to creating art, albeit ephemeral as performance. Each exhibition of my work is less of an opportunity for me to show off my merit as a painter and more or an opportunity to tell stories about where painting has taken me.
On days like today, when I don't feel like picking up a brush, I try to remember some sort of credo like the one above—the words I'd tell someone who assumes I wake up every morning solely to smear color on canvas. But most days, I just wake up to fall asleep a few hours later, overwhelmed by the looming burden of potential unrealized...a pile of aspirations obligating me to feel guilty for any stint of unproductiveness. Guilt and self-loathing are a pretty large part of my daily routine. Everyday is a recurring discovery of greatness forever out of grasp with an inability to turn away from the endeavor—a baby bird with a broken wing, just pushed from the nest, moments away from recognizing defeat while simply trying to do what a bird is supposed to do.
But I'm being dramatic. I could paint twenty pictures today as easily as I could paint none...either way, none of this matters. Despite the malcontent character I've created for myself with a typically pathetic tone, I'm entirely satisfied knowing all of the pursuits I hold dearest to be inconsequential to the rest of the world. And while I'll always scoff at the idea of the "tortured artist," I'd rather be tormented by a blank canvas than most anything else. I've never been so happy being so miserable.
It's a sunny Tuesday morning, Spring is in the air, and I hope you're happy too.
