The Receding Day

To my creative friend,

I was walking last night in the summer evening, thinking of you. The sky was a vast expanse, cloudless and radiant with the departing light. The waning moon sliced a bright sliver in the sky while Venus masqueraded as a star. I do not live in big sky country, but last night I felt the open sky in a way I haven’t in a long time.

It is a peculiar magic to walk at near ten in the summer evenings. The boundary between day and night blurs and the world seems to glow even in the dark. Walking through that twilight, beneath that sky, I felt an immense sense of possibility. I felt the delicate reminder of limitation and ending.

In our creative lives, all things fit together. It makes sense that an evening stroll would help me think through my painting practice. As you know, I’ve been enamored with the process of approaching painting theatrically. Like the empty space of the stage before the story, or the glowing sky at the end of day, I want to feel the immense possibility before I begin.

This has meant taking more time to prepare before beginning the improvisation. Not necessarily to make the materials ready, but to whittle away my own excess until I’m in a simple, honest state. When the moment is right, I begin. I make a choice to contribute something to the space, offering a gesture or a shape. There is not goal except to be articulate with an intention. A legible intention is what I’m after; the intention itself matters little.

That’s how this recent painting began. The first move was to add the delicate energy of beginning (or ending). I’ve been drawn to colors of rising and receding light, mimicking the feeling of last night. That feeling of immense possibility without saturated explanation. And then, my only goal was for the first mark to be an honest one. And when that first red slash appeared, it was an electric shock. A thrill. A sustained chord ringing in my ears.

That first feeling became the practice of this painting: finding moments of resonance. I would come to a still place, make an energetic movement forward, and then stop to savor the feeling or feel the sound. Other times, I acknowledged the absence of the feeling, a hollow void that still held meaning for me.

The painting progressed like this. On we went, finding the soft plink and thunderous chords, and the silence in between. I would often pause, feeling the reverberations until they subsided. And when I made an attempt that ended in silence, the practice was to stay open. Not to coil up in frustration or rush ahead to find the thrill again. The practice is to honor each step in the venture because deafening silence is still a discovery.

Through this improvisation, strange and surprising color harmonies emerged that I did not anticipate finding. Once they happened, the canvas began to hum with a vibrancy of color relations that feels entirely new to me. It is somehow partial and complete. Parts demand to be seen quickly, while others reward a lingering look.

How we come to know ourselves is a constant interest for me. It is one of theatre’s essential questions and the foundation of mysticism: Who are you?

It is alluring to assume we have a complete picture of ourselves. We want to feel a strong center of gravity that keeps our various parts in tight orbit. We want all of this to fit together and make sense. Tidy and explainable.

But the self—you—are not an object. You are a rich relation. You are a living ecosystem that has an incomprehensible inner wisdom and logic. You are a rich vibrancy that defies what should or should not belong together because we are too meek to know.

This is what I want to tell you, friend. In your work and in your play of coming to know yourself, remain open. Feel the expanse of what could be, quietly resting in that wonder. From that home, start to improvise. Move with intention. Risk. React and respond, offering and weaving what is inside and out. Make marks until you find your resonance, delighting the world with the singular symphony you are.

With love,
Chad