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| Is your studio filled with clutter like mine? I'm organized, but it still is a lot of stuff. And worse yet, I have two studios! |
Back when I was just a writer, the clutter of my occupation was very little: a typewriter, a ream of blank paper, and a box containing my output. Well, okay, there were also drawers of drafts, some on blue paper, some on yellow—you writers of a certain age will remember all that—plus file folders of research material and rejection letters. But I pretty much kept my business within the bounds of my physical desk. These days, a writer can keep all that on a thumb drive—or better yet, in the Cloud. A writer could literally live in a cardboard box on the street with nothing more than a smartphone.
But then I became a painter. For those of us who engage in non-digital visual arts, this requires stuff, lots of stuff, stuff to make more stuff. Technology hasn't helped us one whit on this; you can't be a painter and live in a cardboard box. So now, I have jars of tired brushes that should be thrown away but maybe not, because I might some day need the one that looks like it's been gnawed down to the bone. Boxes of exhausted paint tubes out of which I might squeeze a pinhead of paint if I took a hammer to them. Shelves of finished canvases that haven't yet sold or might never sell and perhaps should be painted over. Drawers crammed with the detritus of an active, artistic life: pastel sticks and pastel nubs; virgin erasers and eraser crumbs; sketchbooks, both large and small, some with very good sketches, others with very poor ones. And then pencils and crayons and pens and—oh my! as Dorothy exclaimed.
Yet, there is hope. I have occasionally been accused of all-too-seriously suggesting that a painter really only needs one canvas and a camera. Make a painting, snap a picture of it, and then scrape out the canvas so it's fresh for the next one. Paint, photo, wipe—and repeat. Over time, a painter could have a digital archive of thousands of paintings but only the one canvas, which he recycles as needed. You could almost live in a cardboard box with this approach.
Of course, I said that tongue-in-cheek. On the other hand, I am learning that, for me, painting is more about the experience and not the final artifact, so maybe I'm onto something.
Recently, I had another idea. Busy in the studio on a painting that featured some autumn foliage in my canyon, I decided I needed to hike out to the location for more information. As I stood on the rim, gazing down into a beautiful collection of fall color, deep in the moment, it occurred to me that I was actually building the painting in my head, with each observation adding another stroke to my mental canvas. What if I took this to its natural conclusion, refining the process of painting until I had moved it out of the physical dimension and into some transcendental plane?
What if, whenever I felt the urge to paint, I just sat quietly, never picking up a brush, never mixing a color, but instead simply observing with a painter's eye? Would that be enough? This minimalist would like to think so, but, no. There's something about picking up a brush and mixing paint that is also satisfying. I don't think I could give up the physical component of painting. And then there's the communication aspect. As much as the experience is most important to me, it's also satisfying to share that experience—and the only way to do that is through the painted canvas.
So,what's the solution to decluttering my artistic life? My grandfather was a farmer and, having lived through the Depression, never threw anything out. When he passed away, we found in his barn countless gallon glass jars containing screws and bolts and nails, boxes of gaskets and oily wrenches and bits of wire. Everything, all of it used and probably bent, torn or broken, was sorted and neatly organized. Still, did he really need to keep all of that? In a way, he was an artist, too, since he could fix anything—not just because he was creative but also because he had the odds and ends to make it happen. So, yes, I suppose he did need to keep all of that.
And maybe I do, too.
