I  still keep hoping to
experience that ultimate kick of creating an expressionist masterpiece like my
once-upon-a-time five –year- old self might have pulled off.

Could be I wasn’t even
all that talented. Still I always think I knew something back then that I don’t
have a handle on now.  That I just
went with it––That I was an uninhibited “method” painter.

“METHOD” PAINTING AND “METHOD” ACTING.

Aren’t they kind of
alike?

Does a kid need
training in  “method” acting?  Give a child the general idea and they
just feel themselves into a different character. It comes natural.  In the same way, they are born “method
painters”.  They can be completely
into themselves.

For adults, it’s a
different story. At least it is for me. 
All my adult painting life, the character I keep trying to get into is
no stranger; I am striving for the real article, the authentic me that every
artist hopes to find.

WILD FLYERS & LONG
SHOTS

Taking a flyer is what
I want to do when I start a new painting. 
I don’t want to play it safe. I want the “method” painter in me to jump
out of her skin––Take chances.

 AND WHEN IT
WORKS…

It’s great! You are in
another world; Moving to your own beat.

Any material, any
tool–– A knife, a stick, a finger, anything works.

You are working so
fast you haven’t got time to obsess. As you progress, the right materials, the
right techniques, just present themselves.  

That music you put on
that you hoped would rock you to the core has become aural wallpaper. Chuck
Mangione or Turandot. –– it’s 
cooking  there in your
nervous system, along with your artistic juices.

YOU ARE ON A ROLL!

You don’t calculate,
you don’t hesitate, you just keep juggling everything up in the air. You know
what to do––like when you were five years old.

And when the jugging
act is over, when you are finished––You know when to stop––because your inner
kid took over.

“YEAH, BUT IS IT ANY
GOOD? “

Around this time is
when the devil shows up.

The devil; He’s that
first guy who came along, looked at the first cave painting, and sneered: “Very
nice, but is it Art?”

A Later Version of
This Same Wiseacre, on encountering a Picasso drawing, gave his critique:  “ My five year old could do that!”

 So I wouldn’t mind that evaluation, if I
should be so privileged. It would mean that I have managed to become that
expressionist painter I like to think I was back then when I was five years
old.