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| ©Robin Edmundson, 'Frost stops at the edge of the woods', watercolor, 11 x 16 inches. Framed to 20 x 24 inches. $400 |
My boss, Angela Fehr, and I talk a lot about mindset as we approach a piece or series of pieces, or play/exploration. This week she posted this great thought on her Instagram account:
I think one of the biggest mistakes we make is in trying to say too much, do too much, in a single painting. After hundreds of paintings, I have started to see paintings more like sentences, or even single words in an ongoing conversation. One painting is not a definitive statement of my identity as an artist, and by setting my art free from this burden, I can simply paint as a way of saying, "Look. Do you see what I see?"
I've been thinking a lot about this, too, for the last few months. I realized that I paint urgently, quickly, impatiently.
I paint as if it's my only chance to say everything that needs to be said.
Nuance is totally lost with that approach.
I realized this, too: I have a background in academics and spent 20 years in front of a college classroom. During those years I learned that I needed to say everything in a lecture at least three times, in different ways in order to be heard by everyone and I consciously developed that habit. I still hear myself do it in important conversations. [I apologize if you hear me do that and wonder why the heck I'm saying things again.]
I know that it is verbal overkill, but my students learned - really learned - the material that way. I knew that repeating myself in different ways was the fastest way to be heard and understood.
I have used the same approach when I paint. I say it, then say it again, and again. No nuance, no guessing, no quiet in which to contemplate and form one's own conclusions. I paint as if I'm preparing the viewer for an exam.
I've been asking myself, 'What if I didn't have to say so much? What if I relaxed and focused on smaller ideas and relationships?'
Would I be understood? Clarity has always been very important to me and it makes me uncomfortable to think that I would let myself be misunderstood when, with a little more effort [just a few more strokes], I could make things very, very clear.
It's a dilemma.
I painted the piece above early last fall because all I wanted to talk about was that one idea - The frost stops at the edge of the woods.
I painted it and then got nervous that everyone else would look at it and wonder why I cut the tops of the trees off. And I wondered if everyone would understand the rest of what I wanted to say, 'Look how beautiful the contrast is between the frosty grass in the pasture and the green of the grass where the woods begin. It's gorgeous! Southern Indiana is beautiful on a frosty morning in early fall!'
You know what happens when you paint it with the tops of the trees intact and a bit of sky showing? It becomes about the trees in the woods and not about the frost at the edge of the woods.
It's the editing-out of the unnecessary that makes the focus possible. I've discovered that - for me - when I start a new series, first I need to decide what it is that I want to focus on. Otherwise I try to focus on everything.
Delicious, loose paintings happen for me when I selectively focus on a form or relationship - and let the rest of it be unsaid.
This. Is. Hard.
Really REALLY hard for me.
I'll keep practicing.
In the meantime, I've been looking for glimmers of this in my recent work and found a few pieces from the last year where I can see this starting to work.
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| Goose Pond, 529 |
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| Four Dancing Echinacea |
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| Mossy Tree |
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| Black Eyed Susans |
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| Daffs & Muscari |
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| Tulip Poplars and Sumac |
I like this direction and I like the idea of developing a new approach for myself - as a sort of second language, to use to communicate in a different way when I need to. And I like the idea that I don't have to belabor a point anymore. I can speak quietly and let those who are ready to hear me, listen and understand the work. That feels good.
