COLLABORATE WITH YOUR ART
Me collaborating with a large drawing
"With me, it's much more a matter of just accepting whatever happens; accepting all these elements from the outside and then trying to work with them in a sort of free collaboration."
~Robert Rauschenberg
Have you ever been working on a painting and all of a sudden something happens that you were not expecting? (For me, all the time, every day. Kind of like life). {Smile}
When this happens has it derailed you? Shut you down? Stopped you in your tracks? Interrupted your momentum? Me too.
It doesn't have to.
What has happened is that you were trying to force, coax and will your painting in a direction that it did not want to go.
The worst thing you can do at this point is put your head down, and in dogged determination, continue to try and force this painting to go where you want it to go or where you think it should go. And, more than likely, you get frustrated and maybe even give up.
A better thing to do, for both you and the painting, is to collaborate with it. Give and take. Head in the direction that you want to go but be open to unexpected ideas, new juxtapositions and relationships, and new ideas to emerge in the process. And then consider them. Will they make the painting better? And then be willing to go in that new direction and try it out. You might be pleasantly surprised. And if it doesn't work, no harm / no foul. You try something else. Yes?
Your painting is a living, breathing thing and it invites and responds to collaboration.
Best,
David
