Felt Mark Making & Honest Gestures
As mentioned before, I am taking a course with Michael Markowitz. His course reminds me of the Karate Kid - he teaches mark-making in the same way Master Roshi taught to wax on wax off. We follow instructions that sound silly at first. Draw and don't look at the page - don't force an image - let marks happen - don't analyze the pose. But in the same way Master Roshi was priming his pupil to be a mindful competitor, so is Michael ultimately priming us for a richer experience in creation.
Through the most recent exercise in his course, he taught that an image is a dynamic entity. I learned that as soon a new mark is placed on the page, it is a completely new image with completely new possibilities - possibilities that shouldn't be driven by intent, but by intuition and gut-feeling. The same gut feelings that make you grab for water when you are thirsty - something you don't think about but just "do".
I also learned that I shouldn't feel such a sense of ownership to a piece in progress. Along with ownership comes the stiffing sense of intent. To me ownership says, "I own this page, and so it will do this, it will look this way when it is done because I said so". Metaphorically speaking, it makes a piece into a slave. A breathing piece of art doesn't have room to breathe if it is a slave to ownership and overbearing control.
So I'm reconsidering my previous stance on wanting to be in the middle ground - in a place between technique and pure abandonment. At the moment, I don't know where I stand completely. A part of me is afraid to trust that a good thing will come from spontaneity. However, in spite of that, a larger part is beginning to feel that genuinely good things happen when they come from within.
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