I have been thinking and writing about opaque processes: ones where we do not know, indeed cannot see, what’s happening, nor can we know what the outcome of the processes will be. We live much of our life embedded in and entangled with such opaque processes. And the more uncertain and chaotic our world, the more opaque the processes we are part of and affected by.
Of course we also strive to learn more about processes in our world. Any knowledge seeking endeavor is helping us see into processes. Sometimes we learn enough to give us a possibility of controlling a process, allowing us to determine the outcome. And often we do not get there, given the enormous complexity of our worlds.
Or we’re become over confident about our ability to control a process. We think we understand more than we actually do. Our discomfort with uncertainty means that we often overestimate our ability to control processes. Which can sometimes lead to disastrous consequences.
Or sometimes not quite a disaster; just a painting that insisted in going in the opposite direction of almost intention I had for it!! I really started the painting above with a sense of the process, and a specific outcome in mind. Wanted to paint a fast, quick one. No, said the painting. Wanted to have big calligraphic line work. No, said the painting. Wanted to have a different color palette. No, again.
Instead, what emerged was a reminder again of just how opaque a creative process can be. And a painting that is yet again an expression of some opaque process inside of me. A process of grappling and wrestling with the interplay of the elements of water, earth, air and fire, and trying to make sense of the state of our planet through this lens.
In this instance, the outcome is surprisingly joyous – an evocation of the energy of rain dancing on the earth. Again ambigous as to scale – it could be a large landscape or a small up-close slice of water meeting earth. The energy in this image evokes lovely memories of my children and grandchildren joyously dancing in the rain. So it is also a very human-filled image for me.
Image: Rain dancing
Acrylic on watercolor paper.
22 by 30 inches