Following the Path

I painted this landscape painting earlier this month inspired by my hiking trip down in the southwestern corner of Virginia in October. It was a foggy hike going up that mountain, heading into the clouds. There were times when the fog was so thick, that I did feel a little nervous about continuing on. But we trusted our instincts and kept on, never straying from the path. Oftentimes in a hike up a mountain, you have to trust that inner compass, whether it’s the fact that you’re on a path so densely surrounded by forest or that the weather creeps in making it difficult to see. You keep on and then a moment comes when you reach a clearing or the fog lifts and you are rewarded with such beautiful vistas that it makes it all worthwhile.

But the arduous part is also part of the beauty. It is all part of the journey.

This was a painting much like that journey in that it had been many paintings already. I kept working on it. Staring at it. No, no. Worked on it more. No. Not yet. It had so many layers of wax because of my dissatisfaction. I finally had enough and thought that what it needed was a clean slate, so I started to scrape and scrape and scrape. Saving the wax in a separate tin to reuse, for as we all know encaustic paint is quite pricey. As I scraped back, collaged bits that had been embedded and earlier paintings were revealed, and I slowed my scraping. Pause. Stare. hmmmm. Ok, I like this….and I reworked what I had revealed in my scraping back.

I really do believe that so much of the creative process can be a metaphor for living. Trust, faith, listening to that inner voice- whether it is dissatisfied or telling you that resolution has been reached. I have also been writing here in my recent blog posts about trying to really hone in on my voice and what I am trying to say and I have come to the conclusion that that is an issue that I will always face as a visual artist. It is a path that we are continually following. If it’s already figured out, then what would compel one to keep returning and returning, day after day? It’s the questions we follow, not the answers.