To Allow What Could Be

Painting is all about letting go. I think that’s why it’s sometimes so hard for me to pick up the brush. The blank canvas can be very intimidating. What am I going to paint? What if it’s not good enough? For me, it’s almost more intimidating to work on a painting in progress.I’ve gotten something down. It’s not finished. It’s not amazing. But it’s not awful either. To continue working on the painting means that I might mess it up. I might change it from OK to awful.

On the flip side, it just might change from OK to amazing. I need to let go of what is in order to allow what could be.

Detail of work in progress. Acrylic on wood.

That’s what I’m working on with this new series. Letting go of what is and allowing room for experimentation and growth. My goal is to simply follow my curiosity. What if I put a line of white here. What if I pull some green across that white. What if I allow some of this red to show through.

What I’m finding is that one curiosity leads to another. And when I get stuck, I look for a spot that seems incomplete and ask what would be interesting to try here.

I don’t know where this will lead me, whether I’ll even like the finished pieces, but that’s really not what this is about. This is about allowing myself to surrender and open to what could be.