Articles: Art & The Challenge of Change | Saving The World One Painting at a Time | Marin IJ | Drinking From the Source

I’ve been granted the opportunity to stand with literally thousands of people in front of a blank piece of paper. And in doing so I’ve witnessed many of the infinite variations of the creative process in action. What happens has nothing to do with painting per se, yet the innocence of using color and form make it a perfect medium for exploration. Most people are immediately disarmed by the directness of this confrontation, as they quickly find themselves without a clue as to how to proceed. And that it’s nonverbal is a tremendous asset–it can’t be talked around with the clever use of words and concepts. It demands an authentic gesture, and that cannot be faked.

Often I’m asked to explain what, if anything, I do as a facilitator. I can only say that there’s no technique or predetermined agenda behind this conversation. I have no idea what’s going to happen when I approach a person in front of their painting. In fact, it’s important that I don’t have an inkling of what to do, otherwise the potential would be diminished and the field closed to something real. ‘Not knowing’, when tolerated, seems to create a vacuum where another type of knowingness can emerge. And it doesn’t happen to just one of us, but somehow appears in the space we both share as we stand together before the emptiness. It usually announces itself through a seemingly innocent movement of the hand, a quickening of the breath when a color is considered, or a sudden straightening of posture at the appearance of a new image. It’s an energy that follows no established rules, other than the fact that it’s always available. Its appearance is forever surprising, yet it carries a sureness and an inevitability. It seems like the most natural thing, yet it’s often dismissed as being too obvious or unimportant.

I rely on this intuitive appearance – more than any of the stories people tell me about their paintings, more than their desires and preferences, more than their objections and judgments, and certainly more than their reasons to be finished. It’s clear that there’s a thread weaving its way in and through the work with an uncanny intelligence. It doesn’t follow any attempts to interpret or explain what is going on, yet it has its own rules of logic, and it demands absolute loyalty at the price of boredom and blockage. If its voice is not heeded and a route is chosen that has its source in the ever-plotting mind, the thread is lost and the painter abandoned to struggle in a directionless morass of contrived concepts and empty scribblings. It’s the source of creative blocks as well as creative breakthroughs. It‘s the invisible energy that guides and sustains the entire endeavor, and it’s a hard taskmaster.

I know that this thread, if followed, will inevitably lead to a dark passage. The banks of the stream will imperceptibly press in until the course is narrow and the way ahead seemingly impassable. A point will be reached where it’s necessary to put everything at risk – much more so than just the content of the painting. A momentous leap will be required that demands full abandonment of control. It’s at these times that support is most often needed. It’s here that the mind will balk at the crisis and come up with a thousand reasons not to proceed. A real threat is perceived, and rightly so. Something will have to die to pass through that small opening into the larger space beyond, and at that moment it seems like the least desirable alternative. It takes one’s best efforts to keep painting at this juncture, because there’s no proof that there’s anything on the other side. Each time it comes down to absolute faith.

It’s the hunger for this challenge that attracts people to such an unorthodox and unrecognized practice, even though it has no established lineage. Sometimes I’ve wished I could claim the authority of the Buddha to lend the support of the eons and all those who’ve passed before. Sometimes I’ve wished for the security of a degree in a recognized profession with a sanctioned license from a state certified board. But when I look, that sanction is everywhere. It’s in the eyes of those who’ve touched the flame as they surrender to the powerful current calling them so strongly to their painting. It’s in the vitality and acute aliveness awakened when someone risks the plunge without the deadening safety of precaution. And it’s in the mysterious and splendid sense of inner space that opens to such a simple touch as the brush to paper.

Copyright Stewart Cubley 2005