Perfectly Nonexistent
I’ve always desired to get it perfect.
Spending hours within one square inch,
Just to get it right.
Going back and forth between strokes,
Deciding which one equates to perfection.
But there is no right, no perfect.
Trained in mathematics,
With no margin of error.
Always looking for the answer.
Using the equation that solves all my problems.
But in reality, there are no problems to be solved,
And there is no answer.
There is only truth.
Not the truth found in the laws of physics.
but the truth found within the heart;
Emotional Truth.
So this is what I seek now.
Not Perfection.
Emotional Truth.
Because in Art, in Humanness, there is no perfection.
There is feeling and movement and confusion and understanding.
There is beauty and unnecessary shades of shame.
I use my pain to move the brush,
So that I may explore, go deeper.
So that you and I may be able to see,
That at the very core,
My pain is your pain.
And by painting it, getting it out into the air.
We may both stand and look at it together.
And I’ll let go of the desire,
That my truth may be your truth.
And just respect them equally.
I’ll paint what I know, and maybe you’ll show me something I didn’t see.
For this is how we grow.
Expanding our minds so that they may play with one another.
Stepping outside my perfectionism mindset.
Allowing there to be a mess.
And slowly shape this into something translatable.
Something felt.
Deeper.
Possibly, Universally.
Because Perfect, is Perfectly Nonexistent.
What came out was a poem. But I feel there is more processing to do. A stream of consciousness that needs to come out.
I started my life out on the track to become an engineer. I studied math and science on a deep level and it consumed my life. I’d be solving equations in my head as I was trying to fall asleep. It was all I knew. The quality about math, that makes it stand out from other subjects, is that there is a right answer. There may be many ways to get there but there is only one right answer. That’s what your looking for. And in science, you repeat procedures until you get precise and accurate, consistent and repetitive results. You follow the same steps.
In art, you may find some of this. The way you set up to paint, may have a similar rhythm to how you did it yesterday. There are steps on how to care for your brushes, or maybe even to mix the 13 values of your paint. But the colors you choose, (and the values you actually end up with), the subject at hand, the strokes of the brush, there is no written formula. It’s a dance that changes moment to moment. And having this trained mind in mathematics, believing there is one solution, has failed me miserably in the arts. Because with this mindset, there is an opportunity to be “wrong.”
I’ve always been embarrassed when people are allowed to look at a painting before it’s anywhere close to being done. I see the amateur artist, the one who has no idea what they are doing. Unless it’s a Lotus, that I’ve painted many times before, then it’s something new that I haven’t quite learned about yet. And I feel judgment that I assume is flowing from the outside in, yet is really only existing internally.
So I strive for perfection because even showing a painting that is “finished,” I can find myself worried. And knowing when a painting is finished, when striving for perfection? Well it never is, it could always be better. A cleaner technique, more accurate values. It’ll never be done with this mindset.
Instead, I’d like to look at these paintings that I call “finished,” only unfinished because the story is still unfolding. Because they haven’t yet reached the person that the need to reach, in order to churn something in someone else. The only reason a painting isn’t “finished” could be because I haven’t shared it with anyone yet.
I’ve made a promise to myself for this year, to stop looking for perfect. But to look for this truth that remains inside, to then transverse it on to the canvas, to be shared. A common knowledge. And to allow that feeling of “I’m wrong,” to just exist as it needs to, but to not let it stop me from trying new things, sharing in my process, and deciding when something is finished because I say it is, because I see truth in it.
So with this, I’m sharing a piece that feels no where close to done. It’s been sitting in my cabin for months now as I chip away at it. But whenever someone has seen it, I get an overwhelming feeling of wanting to hide. And instead of hiding I’m going to throw it out into the world. And just sit with that being exposed.