Yesterday I painted. What I really want to do is pull screens and roll presses, but I can't. Not yet anyway. In the meantime, I will paint.

I've always had a love/hate relationship with painting. I can't control brushes like I can pencils, I'm terrible at mixing colors (and always manage to run out), and nothing ever turns out as I plan. It's not process oriented and calculated like printmaking can be. But I can't let it go. Perhaps I'm confusing a love of looking at painting with a love of actually painting. I nearly fell over after seeing the Francis Bacon show at the Whitney last year, it was all so beautifully executed. But I'm equally stunned by the flatter work of Margaret Kilgallen. The more street and folk art I look at, the more I feel as though I've found my own gateway into painting.


My brain has created all of these parameters of what I can and can't do. I can't paint flatly, it says, what's the point of that? These are notions leftover from an art school education that placed too much emphasis on realism and not enough anywhere else. I agree that it's important–no, essential–to learn perspective, anatomy, and color theory. Everyone should learn to draw 'correctly,' or at least the foundations of drawing. But they shouldn't be stuck competing for the title of most realistic. I realize that I'm beyond those worries of my art school days and in the years since I've largely accepted myself and the style I work in. Hey–there's room for all of us!

So I've had two conflicts: One, I like printmaking processes way more than painting, as I can better relate to them. Two, I keep thinking I'm not allowed to paint, because I'm not a 'painter.' All of these somewhat irrational thoughts have lead me to avoid painting like the plague. My brushes went mostly untouched until a few months ago. The first paintings I did were meticulously planned (the printmaking side of me), but still liberating in a sense. I was painting–in my very own way.



Lately, I've been looking into the LA art scene, gleaning what I can from gallery visits, reading up on mid-century artists/designers, and learning more about street art and culture through resources like the book Beautiful Losers. I've been trying to doodle more and be looser and freer in my work. So yesterday I just sat down and painted. No hours of preparing. Just sketching with paint. Yes, it's still flat. It's somewhat naïve and certainly imperfect, but it made me happy. To act, to be making, and to work in a way that I feel comfortable. That doesn't mean I'm not challenging myself–painting in and of itself is still a challenge–but I'm content at the moment to explore this new approach with little steps.

Sorry for the rambling. I figure that no one reads this anyway and it's good for me to get it all out of my head!