back in the saddle

the last two mondays have offered a couple of hours where i could get away and paint. it has been ages since i have painted, and while it felt good - from the preparation of packing up my gear and loading up the van with paints and canvas to the actual process of making a picture - it also felt awkward. like seeing your summer friends after a year at school. i felt like the canvas and i were strangers. my lines were timid, and my colors amateurish. i think i may have forgotten how to paint, as i had feared.

i have been thinking about painting for months and months, and envisioning this day when i would get back on the horse and how triumphant the occassion would be. how great the paintings would be after months of fasting. my brain, scrubbed clean of the cobwebs that had developed over time, would be fresh and lucid for the creation of new canvases that would encompass all of the theories i have about the new modern painting. that is what i thought, but actually like an injured athlete fresh out of a cast, my first steps have been painful and slow. i am barely walking, much less running and jumping over hurdles. i feel like i am making mistakes and paintings that i made several years ago. my brain has gone to mush, even after all of the introspection.

i can only hope that these are simply the first unsure steps on newly mended legs. i heard an interview the other day of a business leader who said "if you want GOOD ideas, you need a LOT of ideas". i think right now i need a lot of paintings.