I've been thinking about failure. Not so much the fear of failing, but the freedom that comes from allowing it to happen.
A friend recently shared a quote from a ceramicist about finding something new through failure. What interested me wasn't the idea that failure teaches us something. We all know that. It was the suggestion that discovery comes from within, often by coincidence, rather than through a deliberate search for originality.
That struck a chord.
I don't go into the studio looking for something new. Most days, I don't really know what I'm looking for at all.
I start painting. Something develops. I respond to it. Eventually, I might arrive at a composition that seems to work. The colours are right, the relationships make sense, and there's a certain satisfaction in seeing it come together.
And then I start pulling it apart.
I did exactly that today.
I'd been working on a large orange painting. It had reached a point where I could easily have stopped. There was a strong composition, some interesting figures, and enough going on to call it finished.
But something was missing.
Not visually. Something in the experience of making it.
So I started painting over it. Large, sweeping gestures, obliterating parts of what I'd spent hours constructing.
And almost immediately, I felt liberated.
I wasn't thinking about whether it would sell, whether it belonged in a particular series, or whether I'd just ruined a perfectly good painting.
I was simply painting.
I've noticed something else when I watch recordings of myself working. The moments when I'm most absorbed, when I'm making decisions without hesitation, are often the moments when I'm humming or singing along to whatever music happens to be playing.
I'm not thinking about the painting. At least, not consciously.
I'm responding.
Perhaps that's what I've been trying to reach all along. A place where the distance between instinct and action becomes almost nonexistent.
Of course, there's a difference between freedom and carelessness. Not every spontaneous mark improves a painting. Sometimes I go too far. Sometimes I lose something that was worth keeping.
But that's the risk.
And without that risk, I suspect I'd simply repeat what I already know how to do.
I still struggle with doubt. I still question myself. I still find it difficult to leave something unresolved.
But I'm beginning to understand that the struggle isn't necessarily an obstacle to the work. It's part of it.
The real challenge isn't learning how to avoid failure.
It's learning how to stop protecting myself from it.
I don't paint to get it right.
I paint to see what happens when I stop needing to.