Who's in charge of this art gig anyway?

I'm in the habit of saying I just follow orders when it comes to what to paint and how it works out. It's happened enough times that the idea I start out with is quite unlike the image that emerges at the end, implying that the thing I'm accustomed to calling "me" is not necessarily in charge of the process. Manager Mind sets up the practicalities, Genius Mind slips in and does the actual creation. Sometimes manager mind gets taken on quite a runaround.

So it happens that the issue stalking me with a Chesire-cat smile in relation to the current painting is that it's sailing dangerously close to 'chick' art. I'm accustomed to subjects that have some sort of depth somewhere in them, not just pretty pictures, and this one's flirting outrageously with prettiness. Manager mind is concerned.


By comparison, perhaps the most satisfying of the pieces I've done recently in this genre is the one pictured here which I called 'Firedance'. The guy who bought it described it as "complexities of life" which is as good a title as any. It began as a graphic image based on a pretty girl and slowly worked its way to a representation of sexual relationship, perhaps not the highest of philosophical themes but certainly one most of us humans grapple with for much of our lives.

By contrast this new piece risks becoming more like a love-song representing the idealised state that exists before the complexities begin. The fact that I find this lightweight is interesting enough in itself - why should that simple hopefulness be unsatisfying without the drama that follows? - but I'll leave that question alone for now and return to the fact that the 'lite' issue was bugging me but the painting would not lie down. So a solution had to be found.

The place where it all gets decided is in the profile, something so delicate in its execution that I had only a vague notion of how it might be done - here's the original reference that started it all. My first shot at getting this onto canvas had gone all wrong so I scrubbed it off and retreated to ponder the next move.

That came Saturday night. With nothing social happening out here in the African sticks the profile problem started forming itself into that peculiar internal energetic that is the precursor to creative activity. So I donned my painting clothes, retraced the outline, mixed up some paint and stared at the canvas.

What happened next is one of those rare moments that say so much about life as a human. I knew I needed to add depth of shadow to the face, so I sort of lurched forward and waved paint in approximately the right direction, with the intention of shaping it later. This is what landed on the canvas.

I'd like to say that I carefully placed each stroke to shape the nose, lips and chin as it would imply a high level of mastery, but the fact is it was nothing like that. The features as seen here landed that way with only the vaguest involvement of my thinking mind. I stepped backed somewhat gobsmacked, realising that the elusive profile I'd been a little scared of had appeared with a delicate precision that I would simply not have been able to achieve had I been trying to do so. There was even a suggestion of a Tutankhamen-like goatee to go with the Thoth-like horse from my last post.

So who, or what, is doing this painting?

Well, back to manager mind. Astonishing as the event of its appearance is, the profile can't stay like that. It's too much like a logo for a range of hair products, but it is the core of what is to follow. The 'lite' issue is not yet resolved but the direction seems to have appeared. Here's the full canvas as of this writing.