On Saturday we walked on a marked trail. It was a blue one, marked white-blue-white. Fun. I leave the map in the car. Don't need it anymore. I chose a path and I let it lead me. Admiring the scenery, vegetation, animal footprints ... surrenders to the path. Then suddenly a white-transparent-white marking appears. Deviation from the blue trail. I do not know where it is leading, nor what the distance is. I do not know if the target is worth the deviation.
This is where curiosity comes into play. Those who rush to the destination will surely give up this deviation. I turned and gained a surprising and magical cistern (later it turned out, of course, that it was marked on the map and I did not notice, but does not matter ..).
I thought of this trip in the context of the paintings I have been working on lately.
In the exhibition "Ongoing Story" I felt I had come up with something.
The way I painted the works for the exhibition was a discovery for me. Not something I saw somewhere, but something that came out of my doing, out of what interested me. Thus, I painted 10 panels of uniform height (50 cm) and of varying width, which together created one continuous work, 7.40 m long, which was displayed, as befits a work displayed in the library, divided into chapters.
I thought the next thing I would do would be something similar only bigger. I thought I would continue to explore this idea and see where it develops. I even bought the first three canvases, one meter high.
But then the idea came up to have an open studio, and I thought of launching a collection of 25 small works (30 by 30) because it seemed festive and happy...
But where is the continuity? Where is the deepening? Where is the thoroughness? After all, I came up with something there, why rush to abandon it and move on to something else? If the works in the exhibition can be compared to a book, then the works I am currently working on can be compared to cards. Each work on its own. You can mix and match.
I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Whether I should have stick to delving into and researching how to create more in the "book" concept.
But while working on the little paintings I realize that this is also part of the path. That sometimes part of the investigation is also to examine other things. Get different perspectives. And sometimes a deviation from the path can be experiential and wonderful and maybe even spawn a new idea.
And if we go back to the Saturday walk... how would I discover the cistern if I had not been intrigued and followed the "transparent" marks.
And what happened after bathing in the cistern?? I went back to the path. I kept walking, admiring the scenery, vegetation, animal footprints. Even the weather was great.