Creative Energy

I've been on hiatus. I decided to express my feelings of frustration and anger and even rage by painting them rather than writing in this journal. Perhaps it's because these emotions were unspeakably dark and I was afraid. Or maybe I just didn't want to dilute the passion by pouring it into too many vessels. I chose to paint.

I'm constrained after all, by the fact that my family and friends read this. Of course, I could write in secret, lock it with a key, "Dear Diary", and all that. However, constraints are not necessarily bad. They provide a framework, a metered verse, a haiku, into which I must form an economy of ideas and words.

But more than this, I needed to push away from the safety of the shoreline in my painting. Looking over the progression of my work this year I see growth, change and some success. But mostly I detect a change in direction from the painting of safe, pretty pictures to bolder statements of vulnerability and exposure. For that I needed to mine raw emotional materials that had not been codifed and cauterized through writing.

Of course, I am aware that I've just written about not writing and... I'm still writing... and I hope this hasn't siphoned off the energy needed for my next painting.