working a puzzle

another nice article from robert genn, reprinted with permission:

A fellow painter told me her whole approach was intuitive. "Bob, it's not that your ideas aren't intelligent," she told me, "but I just don't need to know all that stuff." After telling me once again she paints how she feels, she went on to say that she wasn't feeling all that motivated. Later, I was wondering if it might be me un-motivating her.

Then I was remembering the many painters over the years who reported poor motivation and who also just happened to be from the intuition camp. Looking into old emails I found statements like, "It feels too easy to be worthwhile," "I can't be bothered anymore," "I don't know where I'm going," "All I paint is chaos," and "What's the use?"

That night I happened to be in an airport departure lounge. I couldn't help but notice a fellow traveller abandoning her half-completed crossword puzzle on the seat beside her. She had that internal smile that betrayed her satisfaction.

That was when my banana ripple fell off its cone. It's not only finishing the puzzle that satisfies, I realized, it's going word by word that brings the joy.

In painting, I use the puzzle system. I commit myself to one stroke or another at the beginning, then look around to see what my next move might be. Thus, I go from move to move--working out the puzzle--until it's either completed or abandoned.

The puzzle system starts with the proposition that you may not know what to do. The nice part is that, deep down, you have the feeling that you can figure it out. The system draws heavily on the skills of focus and concentration, as well as your accumulated knowledge of techniques and processes. A logical order may be desirable but, as in the case of the recently mentioned ice-cream cone, things can go this way or that. In other words, plenty of opportunities for intuition develop during the game. Further, the process is both additive and subtractive. Things you thought you needed turn out not to be needed; and things you didn't know were needed are suddenly seen to be needed. Balancing it all is quite an art.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "Painting is the passage from the chaos of the emotions to the order of the possible." (Balthus)

Esoterica: If you decide to play this sort of game, if only as a test, you'll find there are challenges. Thinking is needed. As things go this way and that, you may, for example, need to dig for reference you hardly anticipated. Constantly asking the question "What could be?" may take you onto unfamiliar ground--maybe an odyssey of walking among the stars. The byproduct of this sort of structured but exploratory art-making is exhilaration. Thus joyfully obsessed, you may just happen to find yourself motivated. As far as I can see, the work is more like play. "Ludere ludum" said the Roman poet and philosopher Kjerkius Gennius (36 BC), "Play the game."