Breaking away from the shoulds

I painted this one about three days ago -- I did three that day, so this one kind of took a back seat, I think it's because it's a little busy for my taste.

The busy-ness is partly due to the fact that I sprayed it with alcohol when wet, so there's a little more texture than I like.

But it's mostly due to the symmetry of it; it's sort of too balanced -- which is a problem with much of my work. Though I admire art that has huge areas of color balanced with small ones, my natural instinct is a bit more -- as they say on "Making the Cut" -- "Matchy-Matchy."

(Yes, I watch Making the Cut. I don't like it as much as Project Runway, but I don't have cable so can't get that without paying for it. So I compromise.)

Meanwhile, my daughter has invited me and several of her friends to participate in a 21-day Deepak Chopra Abundance Meditation series, and today's task (in addition to the meditation) is to think about people we know who somehow manage to thrive without playing the game, without being prey to the shoulds visited on them by society. The first people I listed, actually, were my daughters: I somehow, despite my own tendency to always be worried about living up to others' expectations, managed to raise two young women who are striking out on their own, doing what they want to do, and carving their own unique niches in the world while at the same time being thoughtful, generous, and responsible human beings. I admire them enormously, and wish I could emulate their independent spirits.

I do my best, and with my husband's help I'm growing more and more able to be myself, ask for what I need, and release the need for societal approval. But the canvas tends to be the playing field on which these battles happen; the place where I am most aware of my need to please, my fear of making mistakes, and the voices in my head that keep me straitjacketed.

So I look at the progression of paintings over the course of these last few weeks, and I confess I feel greatly encouraged. Yesterday may have been an attempt to step away from my love of color into a more neutral zone, but I made some marks! I let them show through! The painting isn't balanced, either in colors or in shapes (although my misguided attempts to rectify that muddy up that red section on the right rather a lot; I had to resort to some pretty heavy white to mask those insecurities.) And it's much freer than my earlier, more conscious attempt to avoid balance (see the rather sad and contrived painting of April 2/3.)

So yay! Progress! Those of us who struggle mightily with those societal/parental expectations need to cut ourselves some slack and applaud whatever tiny steps we make out of that zone. And now, thinking of that, I remember making the students in my theology class read Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, and how much class discussion was focused on the passage near the beginning of the book where she said we need to learn to write as if our parents were NOT looking over our shoulders.

If your childhood was less than ideal, you may have been raised thinking that if you told the truth about what really went on in your family, a long bony white finger would emerge from a cloud and point to you, while a chilling voice thundered, "We *told* you not to tell." 

Instead, she says, "you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”

I'd say I've definitely achieved that with my plays (friends have been somewhat astonished by the language and subjects of some of my work). But painting, not so much. But that's okay -- it means there's still stuff to work on, and that's all good. Gives us something to look forward to. In the immortal words of EL Doctorow, it's like driving a car at night with the headlights on: "You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you."

And in a time when all the news seems to be mostly bad, and the future so terribly uncertain, it's good to have a task and goals to concentrate on. One day at a time, stay focused and be grateful we're still here, and still on the move.