Uncertainty can often
blur your surroundings.
Unclear.
The map is always there,
the lines signify the path
you need to follow.
You simply have to find
the direction.
It is all in your hands.
© 2017 j.g. lewis
When does patience turn to procrastination?
For weeks now (almost) I have been plotting a painting onto a canvas. Thoughtfully, decisively, carefully, consciously, marking each line. Deliberately.
It is a large canvas. It had to be; this is a big project.
I have not painted in oils for decades. I’ve thought about it (a lot), and this pandemic seemed to provide opportunity, or an outlet, to make it happen.
I was slow getting started, but 12 days ago I finally began taking the design from my head and mapping it out.
I was incrementally inspired.
I am now at the point — actually, I am hesitating — where I need to mix my medium, take up my brush and begin to apply colour to the canvas.
But really, for days now, I stare at the lines on the white surface and I see what it could be, but only in my mind.
Is this now a mental block?
Like the lines on the surface, I am at the intersection of design, desire, and fear.
That’s it: fear.
It is not fear of starting (because, technically, I have begun) but there is the fear of this not looking as I imagined it would look.
Exactly.
Can I be that exacting? Will this work live up to my expectations or will it be even better than I imagined?
There is that doubt.
Right now, I can only know the unknown. That invokes this fear.
This is how I struggle, linearly, creatively, even spiritually, when I take on any artistic project.
Hesitation.
I keep talking myself out of the next step. Is it lack of confidence; or is it lack of control?
I have come to know myself. I know, knowing myself, that the moment I mix the paint, the moment I apply some life to the canvas, what has only been a project will become an obsession. It is the way I am with all things creative.
I know, or I feel, the initial underpainting will pull me in.
If I — and I will — take the next step, will it take me further from, or closer to the realization that I am an artist?
If it takes time, that time is now. Today.
© 2021 j.g. lewis