a breakthrough

there's something funny that happens when i spend the day busy with other things and then oops! the day is done and i'm altogether too tired. still, i have my painting to do. i whine and i piss and moan about it, and i feel so tired i can barely keep my body in a vertical position. and then i pick something simple without much deliberation, and i barrel through it. ironically, usually this gives me my favorite results. call it sloppy, call it loose, call it gestural, call it impatient, call it rushed. call it what you will. could it be that my best work is done when i'm running out of time, in a hurry, or totally exhausted? perhaps, i may just now be realizing. when i was a student, i was so preoccupied with my personal life that i forgot to do the work for one of my final critiques. i wasn't winning awards or impressing my prof much, and so i loathed painting because i felt i wasn't getting anywhere. the night before, i brought my boyfriend up to the studio with me and i impatiently tossed something out in an hour. it was still wet when i brought it to critique the next day, but much to my surprise, the teacher loved it, he picked it out above all the others, he made it the example of what to do. finally, a breakthrough

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. Carl Jung