The Journey of Creation

I want to die to the piece but I struggle against the fear of death at the hand of the piece.

I embark with tremendous optimism, loving the promise of adventure that the blank page or canvas holds in store. In the beginning I feel needs push at me to be expressed. I bravely and boldly take words to paper or paint to canvas. All that white is merely a fogged over mirror of some internal thought and the work is to cooperate with art's capacity to echo humanity—knowing full well that when we experience art, we experience ourselves and when we create art, we create ourselves.

What could be better than this?

The blank page or canvas which initially emulates my untouched self is being transformed by color, shape and texture into a mirror of the human soul suffering the polarities of life and death and love and hate. I find myself in unexpected and unexplored territory and get deeply concerned about the future of the human race. I engage by being pushed, slapped, drugged, thrown to the ground, and then ravished, cherished and loved- all in the course of making art—one story and one picture at a time.

Fear can't help but slip in somewhere between slap and love. I cover it up with bold strokes but I falter and ruin the work. I retreat into some small corner of the piece and diddle waiting for courageous ingenuity to take over. I may wait a long time and I use a lot of words or a lot of paint. The piece and I fall into some darker place where the light is weak and the shadows are strong. Convinced that the work has died just as I have my first inkling of what it's about, I curse I ever started it.

The fear deepens and I hate the vow I made at the outset of this journey that I would finish what I started. Solitary and panicky I push myself to go on and confront the piece, distrustful of my internal capacity to shape the surges that course through me into something, anything, that offers meaning. I retreat, the piece retreats; I advance, the piece advances. It and I are no longer passive and it's my turn to be pursued. I fight the overwhelming urge to abandon this creative act. But little by little we come together, the piece and I. We touch, we embrace, we kiss until what was originally born of lofty intent becomes elemental carnality.

The work is born, showing itself shyly or sometimes slyly. Grateful, I give it what it needs. Mirroring now takes on the excitement of rediscovery and by the time I understand it and articulate the self represented by it, I have already matured and moved on. And I will amplify the dynamic of birth, death and rebirth another time---because this is what an artist lives for.