Tomorrow, I begin my first Landscape painting class at the Historic and “romantic” downtown San Antonio campus of Southwest School of Art. The campus is set off the marvelous and yet unexpected, San Antonio river walk and is in the buildings of what used to be the Ursuline College for girls. In contrast to the larger modern city-scape of cement, strip malls, 8 lane highways with 4 story high over-passes, and cramped apartment complexes with little green space, I am looking forward to my weekly visits to the 1800’s French architectural ‘sanctuary.’
I don’t know how “good” I’m going to be at Landscape painting but I do believe that I will love the time to explore my thoughts, feelings, and aesthetics in this class. I have preconceived ideas of what story or feeling I want to convey through the art I create. For instance, moving from the mountains of Burlington, Vermont to the gently rolling gray-green hills of San Antonio has given me something to complain about and at the same time, gives me a new aesthetic to try to appreciate. I also have a few personal themes of illness among family members that I imagine I will try to explore as is natural, during this class. But perhaps what I am most excited to see on my canvas are the surprises, the meanings I don’t intend to convey but were hidden inside until they reached my brush.
As an artist of theater, I am a very conceptual thinker. The downside for me, when it comes to painting and drawing is my lack of concern with technical things. I think of Twyla Tharp and her talking of discipline and regularity in her book”The Creative Habit” “The Creative Habit.” I’m not good at either really. I want to create more than my personal virtues allow (and I’m not even going to blame my three children under 5) and in this way I am “creatively challenged.” Getting to paint for three hours each Wednesday for the next 10 weeks, is going to give me an opportunity to practice ‘the creative habit.’ I’m so interested to see what will evolve from this experience.
I know I will make mistakes, and that out of those mistakes will come brilliant ideas or just messes that will stay messy. My favorite theater theorist Harold Clurman would say that ‘we need more bad theater because out of the manure can grow something wonderful.’ Tim Harford, economist and ‘ted talker’ makes this point when he reflects on the best ever selling solo piano album, Keith Jarrett’s “The Koln Concert” coming from the struggle to play an out of tune piano with sticky keys in front of a live paying audience. I am sticky keys! Ask my husband. I’m unreliable and sometimes I make too much noise out of tune and sometimes nothing. I am random and a daydreamer. I think my creative ability lies in my own stickiness and the need to come up with a new way because I forgot how the old tune went. I relate, to sticky keys and my mind can be like a little-played piano out of tune giving way to the occasional chord of clarity. So, let’s play these sticky keys of mine.
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