I took this photograph just for fun. No assignment. Just for fun.
Twenty years later it's still fun.
There's so much I should be doing right now. But I'm painting canvases instead. Got the idea to do a series of paintings. No money attached to the project. Just the fun of swirling paint. And adding imposto-ed touches of glinty highlights. Didn't feel like doing any "real" work today. Just letting a brush glide around, leaving a bright residue of ultra-marine and cobalt yellow. And doing my "real job" = Having Fun. That's what my business really pays me to do.
What does painting have to do with photography? Nothing directly. But it feeds into my general idea that art is all encompassing and everything we try and see goes into the big blender in our brains and creates the materials for future creativity in all media.
I've found something interesting over time. The more I write the faster and more fluid it becomes. The easier it becomes. I think, by extension, that art must be the same way. The more you do the more you do and the better you like it and the better you get. I've come to think that the only people who get "writer's block" or "photographer's block" are the people who do the same thing over and over again. Or those people who wait for an assignment before they engage. "Artist's block" is your brain's way of telling you to get off you ass and try something brand new. Or just to do more.
There's entropy and there's stasis and that's as far as most people take things. I'm not always satisfied with that so I'm looking for the chain reaction. A leveraged boost. Maybe you should too.
If you're a photographer you might find painting a perfect adjunct. Head to the art supply store and get $50 work of canvases and tubes of acrylic paints. Hours and hours of creative fun. And a new way to look at color and control (or in my case, lack of control) and you might find that all that swirling and blending makes its way into your photographs. Creative osmosis.
5 comments:
Okay. So. Painting, swimming, photography, blogging. When do you actually getting any paying work done?
Can we have a peek at your painting creations?
Is it a la Jackson Pollock?
Interesting you move from photography into painting. I paint, am learning photography, and find many of the constructs of painting apply to photography, and now photographical constructs are moving into my painting.
All is connected!
Painting is interesting but to say "moving from" photography implies a one way transition. Rather, I am painting to strengthen my photography. But you are absolutely right. It is all connected.
I love that you posted this. I am in a period now where I am involved in many different things, and absolutely love them all. I do get paid for most but I feel that they all influence the other and spur inspiration and fuel the passion for them all.
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