a fresh look

I had taken three new pieces into the gallery to be hung for the Labor Day weekend, including the one at left, and had last seen them on the floor, standing against the wall.  Today they were hung in the center of the wall where my work resides, and in addition to being pleased that they were up, I was pleasantly struck by how they drew my eye. I also had the not unfamiliar, momentary sense that they were not "mine" but had come from somewhere else. This is in part because I do not remember exactly how they were constructed -- a friend asked me, for example, what color the base layer was in one of them, and I honestly couldn't say -- but also, I think, because in each of them I let go of control and allowed the piece to make its demands.  Of course, I chose how I responded to those demands, and so to some extent kept control, but I was not forcing a specific composition or message in any of the three.  At least, I had not started with a message in mind.

In other posts, I have ventured the idea of my paintings having meaning, and of asking myself what message I would want a given piece to have.  Here is a tension that is not unfamiliar in the painting world, though I am encountering it in a new way and with a new immediacy:  When to direct and control, and when to let go. Countless artists have discussed this, and I am grateful for the discourse and vocabulary that they have made available.  What I am finding now is that the question arises anew for each painter, and I have finally come face to face with it in my own work.