"The attempt to define is like a game in which you cannot possibly reach the goal from the starting point but can only close in on it by picking up each time from where the last play landed." -Harold Rosenberg
For me painting is continuous. I don't start with a straight shot to a meaning. I finish one painting and start the next without much analysis. If I stop and try to figure it all out before I reach the goal, the game falls apart. I start assigning meaning and rules and I never finish what I started.
I have this idea that I'm working towards something. A long term something though.
When I was in metals I couldn't ever finish a project because there was a physical, set, drawn plan with steps of how to get there, with no deviation. And if i did deviate then the product would fall apart. Literally. Even in painting if I had a set goal, I either didn't finish the painting or I'd get really frustrated and didn't like the end result.
The only time I liked the end result was if i suddenly smeared the whole painting or altered it completely, and then the painting would be finished. When it wasn't what I had originally planned.
So why not eliminate the frustration, which is the plan, or idea, or goal, and just enjoy the process. And in the idea of keeping painting continuous, why not make finishing a painting and moving on to the next part of the process? A continuous journey towards something fuzzy rather than running in circles around some idea I'll never let myself reach anyway.
I need to get some pictures up here.
-Niki
