Context of work

Back in my twenties I used to brood on the fact I lacked some abilities that other students found easy. I concluded they would achieve success but I obvioulsy couldn't so I got to be rather depressing company.

Until one day a flash of revelation: that I could, so to speak, walk through solid rock. I became suddenly convinced I could develop my own way other than the orthodox way. What others believed was impossible I knew I could do. And I did it although others knew not how. That proved to me that belief in inviting solutions to seemingly-impossible problems always creates unique answers.

Later in life I got a most terrible headache and went to a hospital and died -- I found myself to be an omnipresent infinite self, and I spent an endless timelessness of omnipotent yet tranquil bliss in the most glorious universe.

Until by chance an odd point of light far below caught my eye; I looked and -- oh I wish I hadn't looked -- fell down into a small, dirty piece of crap, a body so stinking and heavy I sincerely wished I were dead again. Eventually I lifted the lids in front of my eyes and figured out I was a man, wrapped in tubes and wires, in a hospital bed. But who I was or where I had no idea.

Later a lady came to visit. She smiled at me and that felt nice. She told me my name was called David and that when I was better she’d take me to her home and she'd look after me. I'd no idea who she was but I thought that sounded good so I said OK.

About a week later Dr Delashaw was telling her (my wife it turns out) what a “ruptured cerebral aneurism” implies when I added a question. Johnny started back in surprise “But you shouldn’t be able to talk; because of what I’ve seen in there!”

Although I could talk I had severe lacks in memory and orientation and got bipolar disorder. Therapist encouraged me to study, study anything at all, for that makes new cells grow. I took to the arts because lovely things are all that cheers me up. It is vital to see beauty when you feel no reason to live. And I found the Oregon Society of Artists provided a venue where I could draw beautiful people.

But just about when I'd grown my art brain my biceps tendon tore in my right-arm! We can't figure out why. But I became disabled again; but the real horror was that it was the arm I do art with! I had zero mechanical strength and intense pain in moving it. Since making art had proved to be my reason to exist, so it was literally vitally imperative to get it fixed. But doctors all agreed it never works to repair tendons at my age so they refuse to do it.

Then I remembered my resolve to invite seemingly-impossible work-arounds. To earn a living I taught my left hand to work a computer mouse. But I continued to attend the OSA studio group. I suffered for months trying to draw left-handed with no success. Could years of training do it? I don't know, but I had to find a quicker way to make art right now for mood control

So I asked my brains to get together and logically figure out what to do, for "inviting solutions to seemingly-impossible problems creates unique answers" The pantheon agreed that my suffering was caused by the arm pressure demanded by pencils, pens and pastels. So is there an alternative?

I finally realized the solution was painting. However I had never had much success at painting and had dropped it at college. I had always been a "line" man, black and white, and had not developed in color. Yet I wrote down this plan and proceeded to work it:

(a) minimize arm and hand pressure by abandoning pencils, pens, pastels and switch to painting watercolor using the softest bristles.
(b) reduce time working by using very broad wash brushes.
(c) limit drawing to quick flourishes with a long narrow script brush.

After a while I realized this all turned out to improve my art because the contrast of broad and narrow strokes makes it seem more lively. Encouraged I sought to paint even more with even less, and went on to:

(d) single-out what’s essential and ignore superfluous things like light and shade.
(e) eliminate backgrounds and perspective. I studied atmospheric or aerial perspective; and since that uses what they call “false color” it has led me on to now studying color as expressionism.
(f) draw only at the last stages of a painting, and only where necessary.

I found that drawing in quick flourishes, like gestures, conveys feeling.

So I have gone from laborious line drawing to the opposite. I conclude that art is ardor not ardor. Should a critic says “But that’s nothing but a scribble, how little time did it take you to do that?” I would reply “It took me all my life!”

To my eye, becoming temporarily disabled has made my art succeed where it had lacked joy. I have found a new art was latent in me

Isn't life like that? Perhaps we would never change without loss. What seemed to be a just a work-around turned out to be my own straight path to a new life.