On Looking

 

I believe it was Goethe who said:  "Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking."  I like to consider that in the realm of painting, because for me, one of the biggest rewards of being a student of painting is the pleasure it brings to daily life; I see things in a way I otherwise would not, I see the effects of light that might otherwise be overlooked and taken for granted, and in a way, that would be living Life unappreciated.

The big challenge, for me, is to try to see life everyday, to look at it and think about it and then try to find a way to represent that on canvas, so that others might see it that way, too.  My poor skills keep me from succeeding at this, but occasionally, lately, I manage to catch just a small piece of it and that seems like a big victory.  And then other times I see something and I know that there is absolutely no use trying to share it, because it is so glorious that nothing I can do will ever come close to it.  Like the walk on the beach with Greta, photo above.  Even the photo cannot share the quality of the light that day; it was so bright and luminous, so pure that the whole world seemed washed clean and fresh and full of hope and joy.  Looking was definitely more interesting than thinking.

Sometimes, though, I would add that remembering is just as interesting as looking, especially those memories of growing up, loved ones now long gone, places and times that are lost forever to the past except in memory.  There are times when, especially upon waking, I am transported back to places and events that are like precious stones, and I savor them and wish I could share them, but to even attempt to grab pen and paper to write them down is to lose connection with the sweet memory, and so I just stay as long as I can in those moments, hoping one day they will congeal in a way that makes it possible to catch them in words.

For the present, I must reconcile my desires with the hard truth that this is an ambitious journey, this effort to learn the way to catch these feelings.  And so I post paintings that fall short, but mark the trail toward possibility.  Here is one such recent work that fell short, but represents the study of the grander subject:

And here is another photo of some of what I see that cannot be translated: