mars – A View from the Wheelhouse

The paintings have each taken on planetary aspects and this one seems to be heading toward Mars. I’ve been trying to preserve a loose, fluid handling, but it always becomes a struggle.

It’s like meditation. When sitting, my mind wanders into monkey territory and I need to refocus-come back to the breath, mantra or visualization. And this is Okay. I’ve heard it said that meditation was about shedding light into the darker corners of confusion and afflictive emotions; confronting obstacles, not avoiding them. Something similar is being played out on canvas.

Ghostly figures emerge from pools of raw umber, terra rosa and paynes gray as if they wanted to give me tips on technique. Maybe they want to tell me it’s all good-just chill and take up a new canvas when things get too thick.

And since these posts are a big part of this process, I’ve decided they should also be more spontaneous-straight from the heart. Just whip it out without worrying it too much.

At the same time, I’ve continued to grapple with Jerusalem. I read of Los’s (poetic genius) struggles with Urizen (reasoning power) to re-establish harmony among the 4 Zoas (similar to Jung’s 4 functions) in the imaginative project of building Jerusalem. There are are verses that, while memorizing them, beguile me with their stunning imagery and painterly use of upper case letters. Some have all the pithy weight of a zen koan.