Mild Euphoria

​"Mild Euphoria" - mixed media on paper, 15" x 11".  Ready to frame.  Available here and at Artfinder.

The last of the visitors are gone.  The house is quiet, the cupboard is bare.  My heart is full of laughter, late nights and adventure with some of the best people on earth.  But now it is time to paint!

This piece began as one of the small starts from the Pat Dews workshop.  It really didn't have any direction, so I decided to seek inspiration from one of the greats - Diebenkorn.

I spent hours with one of his paintings (well, a photo of one of his paintings.  Wouldn't a Diebenkorn on the wall make my house magical?)  And then a little time learning about the man himself.  You can't read about Diebenkorn without stumbling across a list of unusual rules...

Notes to myself on beginning a painting - Richard Diebenkorn. 

1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.
2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued - except as a stimulus for further moves. 
3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for. 
4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities of the paint but consider them absolutely expendable. 
5. Don’t “discover” a subject - of any kind. 
6. Somehow don’t be bored but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.
7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you forward from your present position.
8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.
9. Tolerate chaos.
10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

I am secretly delighted by some of these....perverse carefulness is intriguing!  As is using the destructive potential of boredom.   Chaos, now, that is a steady state in my studio and in many of my paintings.  It is certainly the state of my calendar.  "Attempt what is not certain" - this is a call to ADVENTURE and EXPLORATION!  Oh yes!  My heart sings at that one.

And so, this little piece, following some of these rules on top of a workshop start, leaves me a little giddy and mildly euphoric.  Can one be just a little euphoric?  Perhaps that makes me just a smidgeon Pollyanna. :)
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