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I Am Paint
by George Allen Durkee
April 28, 2008

I am paint. One day the stuff just runs out of me; on another day, simply beginning is a day's work. I need days in a row to catch my stride. Painting daily, there is an easy momentum from one painting to the next. Having stopped for a week or more, I grapple with demons. Am I good enough, smart enough, can't I remember anything? I am clumsy. Paint slips and slides instead of gliding easily into place.

I know. This is. The way. It is. I have accumulated enough history to know that the only way beyond this awkwardness is though it. I must be willing to paint a bad painting, or a series of them, until the oils begin to flow again. This cannot be different than what musicians, athletes, meditators - anyone practicing a skill - must experience. Self doubt must be put aside.

One of the strongest inhibitors to painting well is needing a particular outcome - I try too hard. Better to simply allow the work to unfold in the way it will, allow myself to be what I am in this moment, or on this particular day. I have been through this cycle many times. It is never quite the same. I find new reasons to not know what I definitely do know about being in The Zone, not being in The Zone and getting from here to there. Just paint.  

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