Its winter in Australia, with cold and frosty mornings where I live in Adelaide. It makes it harder to get up early but every time I do I’m reminded just how good it is to get out and just do stuff, to go for that walk, to have that steamy coffee warm you up, and to do some painting or writing. Recently I found myself reluctant to start a work, (or write this blog!) I wasn’t going into the studio nearly as much. I had the big piece of watercolour paper there on my desk, I cleared the desk to go, got out my colours, but it all felt too “special” to just begin. And there was nothing to paint, nothing to write about. I didn’t know what was stopping me actually starting. I wanted to paint, I had cleared the desk to work, but nothing came out. I would read, I would think about my work, but every time I looked at the large sheet of paper I thought, it’s too special, I’ll wait for the special idea. And of course the special idea and the grand inspiration didn’t arrive. I was stymied.
But one day I sat down and just started sort of doodling a small detail on sheet which already had a background on it I didn’t particularly know what to do with. Because this sheet wasn’t special, and because there wasn’t anything at stake, I just played around with paint and brush, adding water or colour here or there with no plan and no idea of where it was going and ……bingo! A detail of the painting I wanted appeared right before me, just like an old friend who had been hiding behind the door. I almost said hello! Then I knew immediately how to begin and I did.
Honestly you think I’d have learned this by now, the value of playing, the value of letting the ideas guide you rather than you hammering the idea into the shape you want it to be. I have to learn again and again that creativity comes through you, it isn’t made by you.
I was also reminded of the freedom and ease of starting more than one painting at the same time. Somehow if you only start one painting at a time, there’s too much riding on it, too much effort. You think, “If I make a mistake this painting will be ruined.” And these thoughts can prevent you moving in the direction the idea wants to go for fear of making a mistake. It reminds me of the film Lion, based on the novel A long way home by Saroo Brierley, which is the story of a young Indian boy who becomes separated from his family and birth place and who is subsequently adopted to a family in Tasmania. The actor playing Saroo is looking for his birth place in India from Tasmania on Google Earth, based on only a few half remembered images he still has from before he was adopted at the age of 5. He spends months, if not years, methodically mapping various train line routes from Mumbai and searching along them without success, until one day, idly spinning Google Earth, he comes upon an image he vaguely recognises from where he came from, and finds again the name of the town he was born in.
This scene reminded me yet again, that ideas can’t be bludgeoned into shape, you can’t force them to come to you, and you can’t wait for them to arrive either. Just be open to what appears for you, playfully, lightly and gently. Creativity reveals itself to you, it isn’t revealed by you; and I learn this again and again in my creative practice.
