8.17.09 - 351/365

while i was spending another day in the "disconnect zone"
i thought about my conversation w/lauren yesterday:
when,
trying to describe where i'm at, i said:

"it's not so much that i've
come out of something
or
gone through something
it's more that i am accepting this part of the journey"

i actually now see that i am on the exact same path as i've been for years
if i look at the work
there is a total continuum;
from 3 years ago
thru
when i was barely working
to
when i started back for real in the studio 7 months ago

(my feelings aside,
the reality is these 7 large canvases didn't just materialize out of thin air
nor did those 8 smaller ones, or the countless watercolors)

what has changed is my perspective
how i choose to look at things,
through what lens
ok,
so maybe it's not "choose"
but this disconnect is just a powerful feeling
about my relationship to to my process,
the process is a separate thing,
continuing,
sometimes, almost in spite of myself

the trick is to manage to keep on going,
day after day,
making the space and time to make things;
that's the process,
how i feel about it is something else

(this was a concept that was always difficult for me to grasp,
when people would say:
"but that's just a feeling"
i would think
"but that's what matters, that's what defines me"
but that's not really true
there is "me"
there is what i do
and
there is how i feel about it
they are 3 separate things
and it's a choice how strongly i identify with any or all of them)

and yes
the way i seem to feel about my process now
is that it is unfamiliar
and that's difficult
but it doesn't really mean very much
as long as i have faith
and keep working

what has changed recently
is my ability to accept this state,
tolerate this p.o.v.
that's all

someone has dinner waiting in the garden

new project coming soon let me know if you are interested