Introduction:
Welcome to the seminar on the uterus of painting. this lecture will hopefully make it more possible for people to understand the simple yet complex mood pattern that i undergo when i am painting in the spiritual sense.
The Uterus of Painting refers to what players of sport call being "in the zone", musicians call it "being in the groove" and the uninterested call it "a weird spell". However it is that point where you are in a fertile creative state, from which your best and most soul satisfying work comes from.
However, as this seminar intends to show, getting into this place is fraught with difficulty and there are many aspects which lead to false prophets.
The seminar will be lead by utilising a diagram (figure A) that will help visualise the creative states.
THE UTERUS OF PAINTING THEORY
The White area : Not Painting
-while this seems an irrelevant state, it's place must be observed in order to gain a basis. It gives a stable to the idea. And while preparation work for drawings/paintings can both fall into this area, i think it wise to consider that drawing as a final solution would not be incorporated into this seminar, for this is dealing with being a painter, ergo the final product would be a painting. So that established, the Not painting period / state can include planning, thoughts, generating experiences via music, love, nature or where-ever your inspiration lies, but you are essentially not in the studio at this point.
The Brown area: The Tea Stretch
- This is the point in which you have entered the area in which you paint (Studio, garage, bed etc) and i normally have a cup of tea to start off. this state can be used (with it's heightened awareness) to provide some generic, over the counter creative output. it is the build up to the next stage...
The Soft Fertile pink area: THE UTERUS OF PAINTING
At this juncture, the studio is lit and the music and sound should be that of a high calibre, whatever that entails for the individual. But conditions have to be right. This is a STATE OF MIND AND SOUL in harmony. music is the flux. this is when true creativity appears, the cold adrenaline and shaking hands of beauty being created. no fear of failure exists in this space, and fear is an irrelevance in creating beauty. the finished painting you might be aiming for, is of no consequence as a product, but only that of the journey on which you progress.
Red Area : Furious Tantrum
NB: you can skip straight from the tea stretch directly to here
this is point that you spit on paintings, begin to chain smoke and break your favorite brushes in fit of rage at the sheer power that you are numb to. you can't see anything. the colours are irrelvant, fake and at this point beauty is in a vaccum.
Pink Area: Malaise.
NB: you can skip straight from the tea stretch directly to here
The most negative and destructive point where you sit and 'do a bit of painting'. the brush doesn't matter, the colour isn't really important. you will use any old paint just trying to finish something. anything. then you sweep into the cycle of loathing that removes the subject from malaise to a place that is not in this diagram.
Conclusion:
Albeit a brief outline of this phenomena, i personally think it's the most concise theory on my creative states that i've ever read.
