no repeats

In my real life I am a painter. That is, when I’m not blogging, fingering words and their sounds, turning over their intricate puzzle-fitting nature. A word is similar to pigment. How it fits. How it influences what is placed next to it. Its temperature. Its value. And then there’s the baggage we bring to it when we encounter it. Seeing what we impose on it- our limitation stew of self esteem, personality and expectation.

I used to paint landscapes, trudging through marshes and patches of woods, always on the lookout for the crook in the road, the softened edge of a tree line meeting the evening sky, the push and play of light on moving clouds. But I lost my appetite for it. It happened gradually, without fanfare. I hardly noticed it at first- the erosion of inspiration, the tedium of repetition. Once the usual problems are solved- how to create distance, how to liquefy a shadow, how to reflect warmth in a cool passage– the process of painting slides into the warm bath of habit and repeating the acquired skill set--- especially if you paint every day, for years.

Showing at galleries encourages reiteration. An artist is pressured to repeat herself. Do that thing you do. Then do it again. I have clients waiting. Fabric swatches. Not very nourishing to the artistic impulse for exploration. But once you hang work in a gallery- and once you sell- art is business. The creative process gets trimmed to fit. And once you get a check for a painting you thought you'd never part with because you needed to pay a medical bill, there is a certain piece of you now missing. And you sense it. You feel the dull weight of resignation (or disgust) bulge just a little.

You have to stop giving yourself away, a therapist once told me. Easy for you to say, I thought. You drive a snappy, safe new vehicle.

But I knew she was right. The way I handled my work was the way I handled everything, with a bent toward pleasing others and an uncanny knack for anticipating what they needed from me. That well oiled unconscious urge to provide. To reflect. To seek approval. The goal then becomes to overcome this predisposition, to become, instead, conscious. To individuate. To discover what Jungians name authentic. Painting can help- if- you do it for yourself.

But painting for yourself is hard. In the real world there is little support or interest in authenticity. It's not even on the radar. When is the last time you heard someone say their goal was to be authentic, or their dream was to become an original thinker?

And forget clients. They want a memory post card, something to accent the drapes, or mark their anniversary. Other artists, perhaps? Not in my experience; they are too often busy measuring their dicks or jockeying for political position. Who studied with whom [Who cares?]. Who got into what gallery (the subtext being, How can they help me get in?). And who won the latest juried prize (big fucking deal- as if judges know shit).

But it always- and I mean always- winds down to who gets the big bucks. That's when the envy and calculation at openings is palpable, a virtual buzz hovering over the free wine and cheese. Art talk melds into a lexicon of commissions and percentages.

It is here, Dear Reader, where I wander off the artist's way. I lose my ambition, my will, my focus. It drops out from under me frighteningly fast and I sink beneath the surface, drifting in a nagging, restless burning I cannot name. I stifle crushing boredom.

The artist's way is not about exterior validation. Politics. Or status. As my Baba Ram Jimmy says, it's not a horse race. It's not romantic. And it's not linear, with color coded periods no matter what the critics and historians try to tell you, drawing their own invested conclusions and framing careers for a paycheck and a dental plan. Art is a process. A journey. That whole the journey is the destination thing? The dharma bums were on to something.

detail taos | karina allrich

Where others might get stiff by the size of Jeff Koons' staff or the annual Art Power List, I am driven by some mysterious process of self discovery. Painting is a way to navigate, to move closer toward understanding the world. That- and writing- is how I deal. And I cannot get there by repeating my past, or following some semblance of formula- even if it may be my own.

Especially if it's my own.

And I'm not going to get there by tinkering with the politics of acquisitions and approval, either. In the end I don’t paint for a collector. Or a dealer. Or even my mother. I don't paint to win a prize. I paint because it gets me where I need to go. Closer to living an authentic life. Which is a hell of a lot harder than you think. And some days, fucking terrifying.

If you're doing it right.

Karina Allrich © 2005-2009