About the Answers

Oh, dear! What about those starts? How do I justify this move into new when the old and unfinished awaits? I can't.

I said in two separate posts, recently, that I would mend my ways and go back to the old “starts” since I know now how to move on with them. This is not happening and I need to search my soul to understand why and to determine if it’s a good thing or not. A “good thing” would be that I am using my time well now and bringing to fruition new work superior to anything I’ve done before. That’s the whole point of this operation. Nothing like getting clear about how one is spending one’s life.

I wrote the words above last week as a beginning to this next post as I realized that I had changed course — again. I planned to title the post “About Betraying the Self”. Unbeknownst to me my mind went to work, and somewhere in its depths found the answer. The question is about why, when I am so disciplined about everything else in my life, is my studio process so devoid of order. The space is organized but the process is not. Other areas of my life run like clock-work: I exercise, brush my teeth, eat the vegetables, and make my bed with military constancy; I never forget to put the garbage out. I have missed writing this blog only once and that only after careful deliberation.

The difference lies in (this was the truth uncovered) curiosity. I am eager to get to work and totally delivered unto the operation when there is something I am looking for. Or something I want to test. Like: How about a sheer glaze of this red over that yellow? Or, suppose I paint on this wallpaper sample and let some of these silly little birds come through? Or, as I am doing now: Let’s see now if this dark grey with a black layer over it will give me the quality I want for the stripes. Oops, well, that didn’t work. But crayon might help. Or pencil. Okay, that’s more like it. Or “Wowie! Look at that!” And then I call my daughters and tell them that I must be some kind of genius. They don’t hear about the forays that look like I was trying to paint mud.

But the older starts are not the place to experiment. I have a planned vision for each and must move into them with confidence, not questions. Of course there will be hang-ups and mud along the way. But when I move ahead and test the new applications on new works (which will later become starts), then I can go back to the older unfinished work a little more prepared and better equipped to make the vision visible.

I have explained the disorder. I will keep it.

The images above are partial views of the studio as it stands now. The pieces tacked to boards, on lightweight paper, will be mounted in groups of four on canvas. Those on the wall (the older “starts”) will remain as works on (heavy) paper but are also meant to be hung as groups.

About Beginnings

I have been working in the new studio since Monday. There is still some fine tuning to do: some of the tools I have carefully stored need to be more easily available, and some of what I have close at hand could be tucked away.

But these are minor details in the bright picture; the studio is great. I can see what I want to see on the walls, all of the works in progress that will come to fruition within the loose bounds of the vision I have for them. I work on several pieces at once which for some unexplainable reason works well for me. But always when I am finally finished and satisfied (sometimes more and sometimes less), there will be leftovers which I call “starts”. On my new studio walls now are several groups of starts that I will push home to what I am imagining as walls of color. I like to see the work in groups; the image I have in mind for them is more apparent when there are two, three or more together. Never mind that they usually sell as single pieces (which sometimes saddens me), I will always see them, in memory (and in photos) supporting and enhancing each other.

The last series I painted, the Destinations, were soft and unstructured, before these there was a series of thirty-two clearly constructed pieces called Structures and before these a gentle group of five pieces that were sort of floaty. (These paintings are viewable at my website, www.joangold.com.) The variation owes much to this going back to work that was begun earlier and slipping back into the mood they bring with them.

I plan to bend to my will the starts on my walls now and to play down any structure that remains in them from whatever it was I wanted when I last dealt with them. Paintings often take the lead but these I will tame, say I. They will honor my intentions or back to the holding bin they go.

Here’s writer George Bernard Shaw: Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course. 

I can be alone now in my studio. It is a private place, a place of solitude. I surrendered my cherished seclusion when I moved to this new setting. I needed the help of my family, my friends and the contractor with his crew. I needed their abilities to make real the home and workplace I planned to occupy for the rest of my life. I even had help in improving on the plan from all of these kind and generous people. Almost every bit of labor and problem-solving that they provided was not within my area of competence.

When it all came together, and that still seems nothing short of miraculous, I opened the door of my new workspace to those who were interested and/or curious during our annual county-wide open studios. These were lots of friends, and strangers too, who quickly became known through the intimacy that comes from talking of what I do and how. And sometimes even what it's about though I don't think I have ever made that clear enough to myself. I met some of my afore-unknown blog readers which was a treat. I am grateful to these helpers and rescuers and visitors and readers. I could not have what I have nor do what I do without them. I could not cover expenses without the sales nor deal with the solitary work without these connections.


And now, finally, I am repossessing my space. I have put away the framed and finished works that were arranged around the studio and have put my materials within easy reach. Less visitor friendly, not quite as tidy. I am refining my plan for finishing the "starts" that are hanging on the walls. The hiatus was good for pushing me into a new view of their future, the "vision" as it were.

I am very happy.

The image above, Little Pink House ©2012, is an updated version of the little houses that I have been making since childhood. They are safe places. I realized when I saw a little house by Rebecca Stauffer that I don't include doors and windows in mine. How's that for seclusion and safety? I must, however, admit that Rebecca's house is the more cheerful of the two.


I wrote an apology for not providing a blog essay last week and hope that it reaches those who don't go to the blog site online along with this newer one. Mea culpa.