colors more colors

Color, more color


you never know when the floodgates are going to come loose, painting is like holding on to the the reins of a horse, or hunting big game, you never know when something is going to fall into your trap. A hunter needs his gun and his instincts, a painter needs his brushes and instincts, the more you’re holding your brushes, the greater the chance it’s going to happen, a painting I mean. Look, for a painter like me, and I mean an expressionist, a dude who can’t paint the same painting twice, I’ve got to be in the studio firing the paint on all the time. This doesn’t mean making art is purely chance, sometimes it is, I curry this, it’s like throwing the runes, or divination, I’ve got to throw the paint on, it’s got to be moved around, I’ve got to follow the paint, romance it if it were, interact with it and follow. Of course you’ve got to be in some control, but maybe it’s more like being with the moment, being in the moment, you and the paint doing this fabulous tango together, you’ve got some technique but at some point the technique becomes absorbed in the whole dance, yeah you’ve moving with your partner, and the music, and it’s up to you to make the dance come to life, to become majestic. All the elements forming the dance . No technique, and you have no form, but to much technique and not enough passion, you've got a lifeless and stiff dance with no soul. It’s never going to be uniquely yours, your voice. That’s it for me, I just can’t preconceive what’s going to come out of me. One of the things I almost always remark after a successful day of painting is “I can’t believe I painted that.” Let me say it again, GAWD, I CANT BELIEVE EYE PAINTED THAT! Is that loud enough for you. If I get in the way of whatever this thing is, this creativity, no, my creativity, then whatever I paint is boring, dull, and lifeless. Believe me I get in my own way all the time and head down the wrong road , and spend two days painting like someone else, well just not like me and I have to grab myself by the throat and paint that sucker out, out spot , out you painting that’s not me. When the work is happening I’m not in charge, I’m moving with the flow, it’s sounds corny but it’s not, it’s fundamental. You see the best thing you can be is yourself, completely totally you, well me and no one else and don’t ever try to . It’s tricky because you’ve got to look at other artists, it’s how you learn. van gogh, gaugin, god how I love them, love their colors, I eat their colors, but I’ve got to let them go at some point and look, as painters we all know how great they are but we’ll never be them and you’ve got to take a chance, the biggest chance you'll ever take in your whole life, the chance to be yourself. Being yourself means knowing yourself, what your strengths are, no more it's much more than this, it's knowing yourself inside out, what am I made off, what do I feel like, who am I? And trusting what that is, what james k is, is great enough and working with that whole thing that is you. Burn out doubt, trust your hand, trust your own knowing, no one else’s. it’s the only way, it’s the painter’s way, your own unique wonderful way. Damn, I did that? No, DAMN, I DID THAT! JGK