Unfolding of my art journey with vessels

Rough and practice sketches for my new series of abstracted still life

I have started making a new series of paintings this past couple of weeks. 

These paintings are in a completely new to me realm. They are someway between figurative and abstract art. No, I have no desire to make realistic looking art. But I do like the idea of portraying things around me in my own artistic way. And try to figure out for myself what these objects mean to me…what meaning do they contain as the surroundings of my daily life…

Now, whether I explore the depths of my humanness with abstract shapes and colours, or with identifiable objects, the aim of my art making remains the same…only the shapes change.

With my abstracted still life paintings, I am not trying to achieve any defined standard. As I have none. I cannot paint them like the masters, nor do I desire to. I just want to represent them from my aesthetic tastes. From my capabilities and strengths. From my humanness at this moment in time.

I started with words…what do I want to convey through these shapes that resemble some objects portrayed in certain colours…what is my art about for me right now.

The words like JOYFUL, PLAYFUL, CHILD-LIKE, IMPERFECT, UNEXPECTED came to my mind. I used this as a starting point when I started thinking about dimensions and materials of the substrate. Colour choices were driven by these words too. And it all started with my draw to everyday objects that I tend to admire the aesthetics of. 

Pottery has been a part of human creativity and developing cultures for a long long time. I accepted my pull to them as a human of the same lineage as our ancestors all over the world, from every culture. they made these objects of great utilities, but did not leave them at just the utilitarian stage. They decorated them with colours and imagery. They tried all sorts of shapes. They told their stories through these objects.

Now I want to tell the story of my developing art through these paintings, about these objects in my life- either real or imagined. The story of the unfolding of my creative journey through making paintings.

With my words to drive my series from an idea to a plan helped me mix colours that excite me to put together in one painting. The plan became more concrete with my sketches, and then started to become a reality as I am now making actual paintings. 

Colour swatches for the colour scheme I am using for my new series of paintings

All from my love affair with objects, and the feelings I want to feel myself in my work: both in the  making, and in the end-product.

Is that all one needs to be creative and make inspiring art I wondered? Ofcourse, one needs skills developed over the years to be able to make the kinds of paintings they admire. And once the skills are in place, it is easy to transfer them to new ideas, to break rules, to be creative without worrying about the quality of the work. 

There is always, always room for improvement and growth.

But it becomes easier to accept and like one’s own work when the skill levels catch up to one’s own standards of good art. 

And creativity does have an easier time sticking around and taking life after that. Tastes become more refined too. 

Then giving flight to new ideas with grace becomes easier, and definitely more exciting. 

And all the journey to get to this place of making exciting art is full of failed attempts and detours. Unexpectedness is to be expected, and welcomed with curiosity and exhilaration, rather than dread and disappointment.

Which means unexpected is not only a word that I want my series to represent., but a feeling that I am happy to invite as I go through the making of this series. Without it, I would not be as alive to my process as I would like.

Perfection is not something that is invited to my party, whatsoever. 

For creativity, perfection is the fire that destroys it. Because perfection and creativity are opposites- perfection can only be the one unachievable standard, but creativity is the many many paths to many many ways of making. We can be on one of the paths or the other: Creativity or perfection- never both. 

The only difference is that we will never reach perfection, but the path of creativity will always lead somewhere or the other.

With all these ideas in my mind, I am having a great time full of inspiration, frustration, learning, destroying and getting to places I did not think I could.

My vessels in paint are holding all these emotions as I give them shape. And that is the unfolding story of my art today.