For more than two weeks now, I have been lost in what feels to me like “the color swamp” – dragging three different paintings with me. Layers and layers of paint, lots of radical obliteration of layers, shifts in direction … No matter what I tried, the work remained inert, without any vital energy moving through it. And all of my color sense – a challenge for me at the best of times – seems to have deserted me.
All of this enough of a challenge that it kept me awake for part of the night! So, rather than engaging in more desperate moves, and circling yet again through the swamp, I decided to pivot. Which meant returning to the pure energy of black and white lines this morning – working with smaller pieces, and playing with a different process than my usual one.
A few weeks ago I worked on some red-white-black pieces, as I processed some of the distressing events happening in the world. One of those involved collaging several thin strips of older pieces on top of one another – capturing something of the energy of things collapsing, of things breaking apart. And it is this piece that inspired my pivot this morning.
I usually find collage in frustrating tension with trying to express energy. However, something worked this morning. It started with making strips out of older black and white line drawings, scrambling them, and then laying them out on either black or white background, guided just by my eye. Not too precise. And no attempt to recreate the original line drawing – the image at the top of this post being one of them.
I love the interplay of positive and negative space that happens in the image. And for me there does seem to be a sense of energy moving through the image, something just outside my ability to fully perceive it. Just a hint, just a trace.
I’m still wondering if it is complete, or whether it needs something more. Or will adding something more just be adding noise?
While I like the products that came out of the pivot – and will explore this technique more – the most important outcome is the impact on my mood. Less frustration, more excitement, more sense of being in touch with the creative energy in me and in the world around me. I had no expectation of anything worthwhile coming out of this exercise. It was purely motivated by the understanding that I needed “different”, while also going back to basics (black and white lines).
A good reminder again of the wisdom of playing, trying different things in different ways, when creatively stuck. Sometimes a pivot is what’s needed – maybe then we can return to the swamp to see what we missed before!
Image: Black and white strip collage,
12 by 9 inches, acrylic, collage on paper