Just Let Everything

"Just Let Everything" - acrylic and charcoal on cradled birchwood panel, 11" x 14" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are bare birchwood; no need to frame.  Hanging wire attached). Available here and at Artfinder.


Maybe we shouldn't try to understand everything.
And just let everything wash over us.

- BRIAN RUTENBERG

I don't know about you, dear reader, but I spend a lot of time trying to understand things.  

That means reading about things, talking about things, thinking about things, making decisions about things, mulling things over, rolling things around on my tongue.  Trying things on, turning things over, pulling things inside out.  But during these snail-paced pandemic times, I am determined to also try just letting everything wash over me.  Which looks a lot like naming a thing and then letting it be.  Or not naming it and letting it be.  Just feeling it and letting it, well, stay or go or morph or bloom or even die.

Just Let Everything

And what I've learned is this:  sometimes a thing will reveal itself when I stop trying to understand it.  WHAT?  That's some sort of zen magic there. Doing NOTHING and learning SOMETHING?   But here's the rub - the reading, mulling, talking and thinking about things opens a world of ways of viewing those things.  So that when I do (finally, reluctantly sometimes) just let a thing BE and it reveals or resolves, it is only because I tried to understand that I can recognize what just happened.

Sigh.  Life is messy.  We might as well be covered in paint.

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About the art:  Beginning with an inspiration photo and a chunky piece of charcoal, working quickly to "catch" the gesture without overly defining it.  Coming in with color to refine a bit and then jumping off from there.  I got SO excited about the process and the paint that I neglected to film the final color applications.  Oy!  That's what happens when a painter is in charge of the video. :)