Colors in my mind
I just want to note that this morning as I woke, I kept my eyes closed for a while and practiced with the color wheel. I could see every color I’ve been considering, both the ones I have and the ones I’ve thought of buying. (I know I’m using the word “color” when “paint” would be more appropriate, but for the pictures in my mind, “color” rings true.
Lying in bed, I took it for granted. When I got up, I realized what an advance this is. Last week I couldn’t have done this. I’d have had to get out my color swatches to take a look.
OK, it’s true that there are a few reds that wouldn’t be absolutely distinct in my mind, with 100% confidence. But I have 90% confidence about those too.
It’s as if, by leaving the paints out on the table in their circle, and by letting myself become totally absorbed in studying color and paint, my mind has leapt to a new level. Whole new mental patterns and abilities have formed. I’m very happy about this.
It has been a little annoying to have the circle of paints out on the drawing board for a week or so. All my clean studio space has been taken up with one thing. And I’ve worried a bit that I’m going off on a detour – the kind that will dump me out a month or two later, so I find myself sitting on the side of the road with my backpack, wondering where I am and where on earth is home and bowlmaking.
But maybe this is how I need to work. This feels like a success to me. There are some risks involved in any work process. Maybe the risk of a detour is one I have to take, in order to get the level of involvement and excitement I prefer – the thrill of the chase.
Bending a line into a circle: Free experimentation vs. learning knowledge & technique from others
There’s something else on my mind about this. You know how the color wheel is made by bending the color spectrum around to form a circle. Well, there’s a kind of straight line gradation in artistic development too. At one end, there’s free experimentation, bumbling around, exploring with a naïve and fresh mind. You don’t know what you’re doing, don’t have any instructions, don’t have any mental knowledge or pictures to bring to bear.
At the other end of this gradation, you know a lot. You understand the physics and chemistry of your materials. You know the techniques others in your field have used with them, and the reasons for the techniques. You’ve practiced the techniques yourself. You know the context: art history, the history of your field within art. You have a clear philosophy – not only of aesthetics, but of meaning and of life. You have goals – both longterm and for the work at hand. There’s probably more, but you see my point.
There are risks involved at both ends of this spectrum. At the free experimenting end, you may waste a lot of time “reinventing the wheel.” You may be frustrated because things don’t turn out to satisfy you, yet there’s nothing to give a clue as to how to change them in a direction you’ll like. There’s a sense of great freedom, but a great risk of being lost – because you were too proud to ask for directions or get a map.
At the knowledge and skill end of the spectrum, the risk is that you’ll lose touch with your own inner direction and development. Since there is plenty of contradictory “knowledge” out there, there’s a risk of just ending up confused, or getting into a sort of web of “I have to find the real truth about X before I can do anything else, certainly before I make any art.” And of course there’s the risk that you’ll end up following someone else’s rules, staying in a sort of art playpen, in a box – when you could be climbing a mountain.
All this changes if you bend this line around so these two ends meet. Then the knowledge you add, the technical skills you practice, are right next to your free experimenting. They add some options for your intuitive work. It’s like having a map in your mind of the United States, with a little grade school geography in the brain as well. Then when you ask your intuition, “what state would you like to visit?” your intuition has something to use besides random chance. You can still turn all the information over to your intuition, to your deepest self, for a choice.
As Robert Henri said, “the mind is a tool….” (The Art Spirit, p. 54.)
11:36:20 AM 
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