Metamorphosis and the creative process. I had a notion to paint something different from the usual, as always. You never know where it might go when you step off a familiar path and deviate from previous patterns.
As
often happens, the way becomes a convoluted detour through bog and
tangled brambles, sniffing out where the forward path lies, or even
encountering a vantage point to get a better picture, so to speak.
But
after all, it’s just painting and no painting ever stopped a war,
but just as with anything you invest a lot of energy in, painting is
not always just a walk in the woods.
The
original idea was to improvise a free-form experiment incorporating
some familiar symbolic and universally archetypal shapes i’ve felt
a resonance with most of my life and often explored. Basic shapes
embedded in the human psyche, in use for perhaps millions of years to
the present day and even appearing in crop circles.
Doodling
as a way to gain access to the process and how to approach it so it
would flow and transform, i got the message that this wasn’t the
moment for it and some other experiment was appropriate. So wrote a
page of reminders evolving out of another recent method.
Best
described in concise language, i coated a canvas with thick layers of
Gesso primer, carefully pressing tracing paper on to it. Then slowly
peeling it off downwards. Clear acetate is more effective having
more spring and suction as it’s released.
The
result may be surprising, or it may not, as it involves what we call
chance. As you may find, ‘in relief’ (pun intended and relevant)
intricate organic forms of rocks and trees, or you may not.
If
done mindfully you will at least have an overall raised network of
organic texture which would otherwise be hard to reproduce. One in
which you may recognize whatever you choose to discern as relevant
images.
When
it was thoroughly dry i tentatively shaded the surface with black oil
pastel. In the same way you’d take a rubbing of a coin with pencil
and thin paper. As it happened, there was a complete landscape with
rocks and trees. I took a photo of a detail which shows this quite
clearly.
Enhancing
with black line the portions to emerge, and/or adding colour in the
process. Throughout and for the most part i stayed with the pattern
already there. Not adding or subtracting till it later became
necessary to modify anomalies.
Hours
of work, three distinct sessions approximately eight or more hours in
duration. Simultaneously thinking about ‘the Golden Age’, and
for years visualized and wondered how to paint it.
Having
imagined such, looked at art depictions, and researched the Vedic
‘Yugas’, the long expanses of cyclic time through Iron, to
Bronze, to Silver, and back to Gold. Eternally wondering why be born
in the latter cusp of the Age of Kali, of iron, wars of destruction
etc. Not yet returned to our full spiritual potential, yet
paradoxically a period conducive to rapid individual spiritual
growth.
Meanwhile
the painting was beginning to look so much like an ancient embossed
plaque that, somewhat out of artistic curiosity i made a spontaneous
if rather bold move. I gave the whole thing a thin wash of gold.
While
fully aware that the relief image could still be revealed, further
hours of contemplation, attempts at manipulation, soon revealed this
wasn’t such a wise move. Gold doesn’t sit well in a three
dimensional landscape. It leaps out of context according to angle of
vision. I considered various possibilities for a while but realized
i had set myself a big problem.
Gold
paint is very hard to obliterate. Even layers of matt varnish won’t
do it. In other situations it did seem to neutralize the shine of
metallic colour.
So
i painted out the whole sky, as well as the forest, with white Gesso
primer. When dry, mixed a new colour tone for the forest, and when
that was dry, went over it with the black oil pastel to reveal the
original network intact.
Laborious
enough even to describe in plain language. A labour of love to
revive, rescue, and return to the path. Metamorphosis indeed.
Modifying piecemeal, touching out and banishing the last of the shiny
bits.
Simultaneously
enriching, enhancing, details in the mode of feeling. Typically
returned five times in succession after packing away, brushes,
paints, etc. thinking it was completed. Obsessive compulsion? Call
it immersion, that’s what it takes. Don’t believe any of the
negative terms ‘they’ continually invent for anything creative so
you’ll buy their pills and give up altogether.
Whatever,
and so much for gold. I resolved the equation, steered it back to
the path set by chance. Returned colour range to a semblance of
muted Celtic earth tones despite foreboding storm clouds in the Age
of Kali.
Besides,
i returned the land to the correct use of gold without domination,
metaphorically of course. Learned how to proceed by going astray and
finding a way. I’ll do something different next time. Despite its
seeming roughness at first glance, the painting expresses a trace of
where i went, to attain to A VANTAGE POINT, and that’s its title.
Thirteen letters of course. ~
~~~~
~~~~ ~~~~
Martin
Rainbowmaker.
