Why Is Painting Hard To Do?

Why is painting hard to do? I've been ready to ask a friend to keep me at my easel with a gun to my head to make me push on and work past the fear. Maybe I should try chocolate as a bribe instead. Actually I would prefer asparagus and olives and marinated artichoke hearts and brie!

Hey, the asparagus, olives, artichoke and brie bribe!

Painting is so hard. But maybe I am being too wimpy. I try to tell myself I must endure the struggle, develop stamina both physical and mental, and to make the habit of transcending the fear and distractions.

My painter friend Rich says that painting is EXTREME solitude. He's right. Maybe because we have to visit another planet, one that has not much connection to this one, and it gets invented and destroyed as we make the voyage. He said painting would be easier if it were just something to do, not an overwhelming necessity. But we wouldn't paint UNLESS it was an overwhelming necessity. It's way too scary. Blessed and cursed by the paint. I have tried to run from painting many times and I do when I am too happy and can't sit still, but the need to paint calls me back!

Last Friday I invited my pal Susan to come see my many starts and a few finishes. She responded in a way that made me realize she is getting something out of my imagery, even more than me! She has a visceral intellectual connection to her eyeballs and a way with words. This is why over the years I have repeatedly called on her.

Lately I am building up my physical stamina by taking big walks everywhere with my big dog, Lily. I like getting strong and muscular again. Maybe it's muscle as mental armor! Bill says, "Just touch the brush." I say okay, Emily, touch the brush for two minutes, and then you can run back out of the room until tomorrow.

I find that playing music with people is a great sister planet to the painting planet.

I just found this quote and I think it describes the painters plight.

There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it’s fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he’s got inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.
-Stephen King, On Writing