You Are The Canvas

work in progress

My meditation room (read living room without furniture) is like a projection booth for my mind. This morning the image of self as landscape painting was showing on the big screen. Trouble is, I was a lovely, large canvas smeared with muddy hues along the horizon line, a painting gone awry, tinged with shades of frustration and envy. But that was okay in a strange way because I was  big enough to hold it all.  And beneath the lashings of poorly mixed student grade paint was a large, clean canvas, simply bearing witness to what came to rest on it. It could go any way.  It could be repainted at any time.

 With lots of studio time lately and a strong aim to find my voice in abstraction I find my brush frequently dipping into pots of frustration. I am suffering the distance between what my work should look like and what it does. Ira Glass talks about that here. I am suffering from my pursuit of beauty, that Peter London reminds us, in his book "No More Secondhand Art" is not the real aim of art.

My head can recite a long list of clever lectures to myself on the topic of frustration, telling me how I shouldn't be attached to outcomes, how I should not compare myself to others, how it is all creative compost.  And while this is all true my mind thinks it can push frustration away by arranging the alphabet in a certain way and spitting it out in frustration's general direction. And yet the truth is frustration arises, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside. It takes no notice of fancy words. It stays close to me, like any faithful companion.

Frustration and I are deeply connected in this lifetime. It has crossed my mind that I might make friends with frustration. If we're going to spend time together, why not quality time? I have sniffed around her a bit, trying to get to know her without getting too close. She's agitated, speedy, and completely without patience. She can make my stomach churn one time, my chest to tighten another.  My attempts to banish her having failed, I can think of nothing else to do but get close enough to know her scent. It is only my judgment that finds frustration not worth knowing.  It is my pleasure seeking self that would like to usher the difficult visitors quickly out of the studio, so I can enjoy more pleasant company.

More work in progress

 When frustration leaves the building envy has been coming to brush up against the canvas I call me.  I suspect envy has been lurking greedily around the corner almost forever. My little self hates her palour, her odour.  Who welcomes the likes of envy? And yet, there she is. Again clever mind tells me I shouldn't compare myself to others, that is my source of envy. I shouldn't lust after the success and accomplishments of others like there is only a finite amount to go around. I should not feel deflated by seeing others soar. Clever self makes me feel worse for all it's lectures about envy.  Yet I feel her hot,  brushstrokes bleed across my canvas. I feel the raw sting of her close companion, shame.  Shame rides snuggly in the pocket of envy. It's just one of those combos: bacon and eggs, toast and jam, envy and shame.  And yet there is a strange twist to this painting.  I want to get to know shame and envy. I dip my finger into their muddiness. I reach it to my lips and taste it. It is sour and bitter, like wormwood and vinegar mixed. I breath it in and hold out a cup of tea at arm's length. Come, come, feral visitors.

So these are my companions. And while the canvas seems caked with mud at some points of the day, for whole days sometimes, underneath it lies the still white canvas, host to it all.  It is only me, looking for beauty and gratification that deems one canvas covering lovely and another one unacceptable. I am learning gradually to appreciate the colours of the day as fine. I am learning that though I prefer chartreuse green to mud, there is value to it all and when viewed skillfully from the eye of practice, the wise curator, there is beauty in the mud. Like all good sculptors know, mud can be worked. It is part of my story.  What's yours?