Zen and the Art of Painting

After teaching a painting class with the palette knife yesterday, I began using it myself. I too felt the freedom that many of my students found exhilarating. I somehow don't always remember to use it, but I will from now on. Another discovery was by moving away from local color, I move away from the forms appearing as if I am trying to make a literal painting, to a painting that uses color for emotional and psychological evocation. Although I have known these things in my mind for a long time now, if I don't put them into practice I forget.

One thing I wish I could forget is the outcome of my paintings. I really do know that when I worry about the success or failure of my work in the eyes of my audience that it seriously inhibits my creativity. As soon as that happens my greatest strength, my intuition, goes away and I am left with doubt and suffering. If I can keep myself in the present moment, in the studio, in the painting, my energy goes into what I am doing versus what I am trying to achieve. It has much to do with the notion of Zen and the Art of Archery by Herrigel. He describes Zen in archery as follows: "The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull's-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art..."