“If you don’t like something, do more of it.” – Jeanne Krabbendam

This past Saturday was my last art class with Jeanne Krabbendam at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design. We had a little gallery for ourselves, displaying all the pieces we’d worked on over the course. There was some pretty amazing stuff after only five Saturdays of instruction (not to mention the weeks of effort in between those Saturdays).

We took turns going around the room, viewing each other’s work and trying to sum up each piece with a word. Words like sophisticated, colourful, geometric, moody, evocative, ethereal were bandied about. And then each artist was asked which of their own work was their favourite.

When it was my turn, I pointed to the 20″ x 24″ piece…the one that the week before I had seriously considered burning, the one that the Saturday before had felt sucky, schmaltzy, pretty and altogether ‘too nice’, the one, in case I haven’t made myself clear, that I was sure was the biggest piece of crap I’d ever laid hands on.

That piece, that’s the piece I chose as my favourite.

And it wasn’t just because I’d spent so much time on it. It was because of the lesson I learned while working on it.

Just like when I’m writing, I don’t usually know what I’m going to write any more than I know what I’m going to do on the canvas. This can be daunting when faced with a big blank space. Sometimes I’m okay with it. I feel confident and enthusiastic.

But most of the time it takes a huge amount of faith to believe that I need to just keep following my instincts. Faith to hope that I’m reaching for the right image, colour, texture. This faith was in short supply on this particular pile of ugliness. I was convinced it needed to be completely painted white so I could start over.

But, in spite of not liking the piece, I was paralyzed with fear of ruining it. What exactly would I be ruining, I asked myself repeatedly, if I didn’t like it to begin with? It was a crazy loop of nutty sabotage self-talk.

Courage sounds like an overwrought word to apply to a little mixed-media painting, but I needed courage to overcome this strange and misplaced (yet very real) fear. Courage was exactly what was required.

So last Saturday, while I was stuck on the crazy train of self-doubt and fear of ruination, Jeanne came over and said, “It’s only canvas. Go for it.”

This might seem a fairly obvious observation to most, but apparently I needed to hear it again.

After that, she did one of her short demos called the ‘rescue technique’. I won’t get into the details, but suffice it to say it involved slopping a lot of black paint on the canvas.

And with that, I was somehow freed to fail, but to fail while daring to risk. I splatted black, I stomped on some circles with a yogurt lid, I spattered, I threw on some rubbing alcohol and wiped away the failed attempts, I splashed in some indigo and I don’t mind telling you, I felt like I was jumping off a cliff. The next week, I continued on with my layers of paint and texture and came to love what I’d wrought.

And therein lies the lesson; this whole creative thing, whether it’s creating a painting, a post or a life, is all about trust.  And having faith. And believing in my instincts. And risking something. Risking anything.

And most of all, being okay with possible failure, because really, what makes it a fail? The worst case scenario is that I can just start over.

But without trying, I’ll never know what beauty might be around the corner.  And isn’t that much better than being stuck on that ol’ fear-filled crazy train?