Creating and Diversion

I attempt two projects on a day with low creative energy.  I do this to distract myself from myself.  Uninspired, I still want to make use of the time.   So, settling in, I add paint to one project.  Then, feeling a little like taking a chance, I decide to lay down some leftover paint  from the first project on the second.  When it becomes play (fast and loose) it turns into fun.  I don't even know whether I like the results.  I cannot foresee or predict where either project is headed. 

Nudged to recall past experience, I then sense that I am channeling from some creative source.  This source works no matter that it is allowed or even acknowledged.  The flow it provides is impeded but not stopped.  I invite this flow by listening to new (to me) music or books on disc during the time in my studio space.  Introducing other elements like these helps me to provide a diversion or perhaps a connection to the new experience being formed in front of me on canvas or paper.  New to new, it is all undiscovered territory, the music/audio book and the art projects.  They provide diversion with a purpose. It does not leave me headroom for second guessing.   No projection of what was experienced in the past can be brought in to sabotage the moment.  Neither the "that won't work!" thoughts nor the efforts at reconciling what is occurring now with what was visualized at the spark, successfully set down roots.       

Armed with a germ of an idea, another section of the first project is painted where recently it shown as white canvas.  This leads to further instruction.  Instruction to layer more of the wet color used onto the part finished during the last session.  It will weave the newly painted and previously worked sections together. 

Another now, a day later, the second project appears much richer in execution than the spontaneous use of paint would suggest at the time of it's application.  A review of the first project also comes with new insight and additional instructions.  Instructions to add similar contrast throughout the whole painting to bring all the sections together.   I look on these as two moments of grace. The largeness of these creative experiences goes beyond the little borders of the studio space or my human mind.   This sense of expansiveness provides evidence to me that I have tapped into some creative flow.