My next show is opening May 11^th in NYC and I don’t know what I am going to make.

I kept thinking that I had so much time. The year hasn’t even really started, my show is not until May which feels like the middle of the year – so close to June which IS the middle of the year. However I have learned that if you want to seriously promote and recover from making the work you need to be done a month early. That gives me till April 15^th  I like to have 3 months at a minimum. And now, today, I have less than that because the 15^th was 6 days ago. I always think that the next show I do, I will start way early,  and just take my time…paint a little every day, spend more time outside of the studio, see friends and go for way more runs with my dog, Maizy.

I think I am kidding myself about how I work. I possibly am fooling myself into thinking that at some point here with all this art business I will figure it out and seamlessly place it in my life in such a way that it is just an enjoyable pastime that gently results in exhibitions every 6 months or so. It is almost as if I have bought into the idea or the fantasy that non artists have of what it is like to be an artist and how great it would be to do just dabble away all day doing what you love and get paid for it.

Well it is great. But in a way it is great after AFTER the fact. After you have had the show, after you have sold lots of the work- that part is really great, not just because obviously one needs income but it also confirms that the hunches you had early on, the insecurities, the questions you placed and eventually answered were resolved correctly. We need to know again and again that we still have IT and that it is not just a fluke that we are artists – that this ridiculously vague notion of being an artist, whatever that means, somehow fits what you do.  I always thought it would be so great to be a fireman. That profession has such clear, defined boundaries.  Not only does society, friends and family understand clearly what you do but you do too. If the house is on fire, if the cat is crying at the top of the tree you know exactly what to do. A frigging alarm even goes off that TELLS you when to do what you do.

First you get to slide down that pole. (I just love that-what career builds into it a joy ride, a mini thrill into your day?)  Your fantastic day begins by jumping up from your bed, slipping down a slippery pole in order to save a few nano seconds of time. You are so needed, your time so precious, your job is so crucial that to run down the stairs one floor to get to your red truck would just not do. Your time is valuable. Lives, in fact, are at stake. You get a totally cool costume, sirens, giant water hoses, ladders, get to play with fire all day long and the distinct possibility that you could save somebody’s life. The job of the fireman is so not like an artist’s that it leaves me at a standstill. I have had thoughts about just getting a fire poll to leap from my bed and slide down to the studio but honestly there is no rush. If I get there a second or two earlier it makes no difference. I still don’t know what I am going to do when I get there. I could even dress a certain way but there just is no point. Nobody is waiting at a burning building to be rescued. There will be no possibility to be a hero today. I do have a dog. It is not spotted like a fireman’s but at least I have that part in place.

Being an artist is all about not having a clue and spending inordinate amounts of time being directionless.  By its very definition there is no definition. It is a non -profession. The main missing ingredient is that there is no certainty. It is a mushy; find your way in the dark, figure it out as you go along kind of profession. Today, standing at the bottom of the hill starting to push a bicycle with two flat tires, it seems enormously unimaginable as to what I am supposed to do now. How am I going to get there? What am I going to make that somehow relates, somehow carries the thread of what I am interested in?

I will get to the studio today. It will probably take awhile as undoubtably there will be far more easier things to do before STARTING on that blank white panel that has been hanging in my studio for the past 8 days. I will get there, hopefully today, but I am not certain. I do know that I will begin here at some point. And that, according to my notes from previous years scribbled in the margins of endless half filled sketchbooks is how you start. How one thing will lead to another which in turn will lead you to the next. I am not sure it will work this way again like it has in the past but it is all I know how to do. I know of no other way to get there. I cannot wait to be able to look back 3-4 months from now and say I made the right decisions, that the hunches were right. That clearly, if I can make all this stuff, that this whole gallery 4 months from now is filled with intention, clarity and obvious certainty that I am still solidly and unmistakably an artist. I will not have saved anyone with my work along the way, nor will I be a hero for sure but I know I will be tremendously grateful.

Why is it so hard, after a break, to start working again? I always feel resistance. Several times during the Xmas break I came into the studio and, after working so hard here for months, I was surprised to feel how foreign it all felt. There was my table with all the used up paints and the floor was still covered with my paint mess. The evidence of my art making was everywhere, but I still felt like a visitor to my own studio. I have noticed that the absence of making art dangerously leads to more of the same…”The less you do the less you do.” Creating is a muscle that will happily atrophy if we allow it. The solution, at least for me is to just begin  and try to show up and pay attention to what is in front of me and become wonderfully lost in it all. It takes a bit of effort at first although, like an awkward first kiss that is doubly filled with vulnerability and  anticipation, it also holds a degree of excitement for what might be possible for the future.
It does seem true in art making that “the less you do, the less you do.” Fortunately, however, the inverse  is also true-“the more you do the more you do!”  This makes it possible to find your groove over and over again. It is how we build our own momentum and produce and create art like there is no tomorrow. It allows us to fill our studio, our imaginations and dreams with our art. Again.

Sometimes what I set out to make does not end up being what I make. I might have a clear idea of what I want, but somewhere along the way I change my mind or something comes along that is far more interesting that my original idea. This seems to be happening more and more to me. I also see that the paintings that deviate the most from my plan are often the best. So would if I began without any preconceptions? Why not just paint anything? How about a bunch of dots? I know that everything is going to change anyway and if I am not really driving the bus, so to speak, then maybe I should just do whatever strikes me at the moment. Maybe a painting is just a series of over lapping moments of experience. A small piece of our life that will be held, forever, in the form of a painting.

This is a small painting 12″ x 12″ I made as a demonstration painting during the last workshop taught at Esalen, CA. All the paintings we work on are always done on this great size of 12″ x 12″. We use 1/4 Birch ply primed with gesso which makes a great durable surface. Perfect for sanding and gouging and collaging. I actually had time to paint during this 7 day workshop because everyone just got on a roll and I was no longer needed after the 4th day! This painting was made using a collaged letter. I thought it was appropriate for the 1st day of a the New Year, because, like an unopened letter there is a delicious bit of mystery and anticipation in the unknown about to become known. “Return” 12″ x 12″ Mixed Media on Panel.
Happy New Year!

Memories in Stones

Pavel Stransky, 91, uses the metaphor of a balance scale to describe his life. One side is filled with darkness and bitter sadness while the other is filled with lighter moments, love and forgiveness. When I asked him which side weighed more he softly said the darker side. As a young jewish man of 19 on Dec 1, 1941 he was rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Thersienstadt, a concentration camp / ghetto created by the Nazis to be used as a staging area for the transporting of thousands of Jews to various concentration camps in Central Europe. His girlfriend was rounded up as well along with his mother and other family members. The walled town which originally accommodated 5,000 was filled by the nazis with 60,000 jews, Christians of non aryan descent, the infirmed and the mentally ill. Imprisioned in this ghetto with little food and no clean water he was fortunately still able to maintain some contact with his girlfriend. When the Nazis decided to ship him to Auschwitz- the largest of the German extermnation camps, he was told it was simply a relocation. Pavel and his girlfriend married the night before so she could accompany him. The only way they could go together was if they were married. So they married in the getto of Thersienstadt and their honeymoon was to go to Auswitch together. Of course, once they arrived they never saw one another again. Through a series of small miracles, the two of them, unbenowst to both of them at the time, survived and were reunited after Germany was defeated and the camps were liberated. Pavel and his wife both surviving Auswitch was one of the very few miraculous stories that came out of this gruesome, dark time. Almost all prisioners perished in the camps. During the afternoon we spent with Pavel, who today conducts tours at Thersienstadt, he walked us to a memorial, gravesite filled with stone markers signifying the thousands that perished there. When visitors pass these markers they place a found stone upon it’s weathered surface. The sadness that these stones symbolize is somehow still able to coexist, at least for me, with the inescapable deep beauty of their random arrangements.

Pollencia,  Mallorca, Spain

The walls of this town are so beautiful. Walking through the narrow streets I had to wonder how just the passage of time could create such amazing surfaces. But it is not just the  patina of Time. There is also something else, although it took me awhile to realize it. The other part that goes into the creation of  these gorgeous surfaces and compositions is the fact that there is a non intentionality about them. There is such freshness to the ingredients- a haphazard drainpipe nailed to the wall 50 years ago, random graffiti, a scrape from a passing cart or just the repeated repainting and repairing of the wall over time. This aspect of randomness can be difficult to invite into making artwork, but I realize more and more that often it is the most interesting aspect of a painting.  Like an overloaded cart that is pulled too quickly and ends up scraping the wall in just the right spot, sometimes I just close my eyes and make marks on the surface of my paintings. As hard as I try, rarely do I come even close to what can be seen on the walls of Pollencia.

A tremendous thank you to everyone who made it out to my opening last Thursday evening. I can’t ever remember working so hard for so many weeks never having much time to see my friends or even family… Spending a few hours in a beautiful room filled with my artwork with some of my favorite people was a night I will remember for a long time. Again, thanks.

Click here to see the whole show or download a catalog of the paintings or visit the newly designed
Nicholas Wilton website.

Finishing.

I just finished a whole series of paintings for my first solo show with Caldwell Snyder Gallery in San Francisco. Tomorrow I am sending the last 4 paintings to the gallery. I have never painted so much for so long before. There is such a sweetness to finishing something that several moths ago seemed like an impossibility to complete. The struggle that I experienced is offset by the tremendous amount I have learned. It feels more like an improved sensitivity to color, shape, texture, and a quickness of resolution or rather  faster realizations when  I am heading in the wrong direction. My daughter, Lyla, just graduated high school yesterday and at one point in the ceremony the audience’s attention was drawn towards the faculty.  The teachers were all sitting together – all so different from one another in look, dress, teaching styles and of course areas of expertise. I thought how fabulous it would be to have so many people’s influence on my life or art. Instead, my learning, seems to be more about spending a tremendous amount of time alone in a room thinking about and trying to make sense of what I am making directly in front of me. It seems unlikely that learning mostly ( there is usually a dog present) by oneself would actually take place, but remarkably it does. The dog’s name is Maizy and the painting above her is an almost finished commission for a wonderful family in Silicon Valley. The painting is inspired by a box of crayola crayons and their gigantic aquarium filled with tropical fish. The painting will hang in their playroom.

I often try and think about what makes someone connect with a work of art. What is it that stops us in our tracks and makes us reconsider, even in a small way, how we see the world or feel about it? Sometimes this happens when we see a work of art, read a great story or just come across anything at all that moves us. Often it is not planned or expected. This video of two friends out on a boat ride so perfectly captures that moment. Life can be so rich, so unbelievably surprising that all one can do in the end, like these two girls, is just laugh and be thankful.

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.