Letting go

This week has seen more discussion about art take place than in any other of my life to date. They stemmed from one fairly short painting session on Sunday afternoon, when something finally happened.

I was working on the larger piece I documented here last week. It had the piece down was on the floor and, along with a box of pencils, I was down there with it. My intention was to add some lines to the piece. Once I had started, my hand steadily became more and more free. The lines became less controlled and my began to jump around and across the canvas. Soon, in a frenzy of sharpening, flying hands and pencils I lost myself in the work. Finally. I stopped trying to exert conscious control. I let go…

A little while later, when the music I had on stopped playing, I sat back on the floor, panting, heart racing, head swimming. I was shocked, sickened, frightened, shaking and later, when I calmed down some, I knew that I had finally taken my first true step into art.

Gone from stewart bremner on Vimeo.

Simply, I had to talk about it. During one conversations, with my friend the artist Megan Chapman, I was challenged to paint a bunch of quick, throwaway pieces. Megan's idea was that by making these pieces, they would help negate some of my entrenched ideas about what art should be and how it should be made.

The challenge made was to paint at least one piece a day for nine days on cheap printer/copier paper and that no piece would take more than an hour. I was somewhat reticent about the idea to begin with and was rather unwilling to try. However, using her wily American ways, she 'double dog dared' me to do it. I was too amused to do anything but accept. Below is one of the pieces from day one, when I painted three.

'Day #1, Piece #3' - acrylic, ink and graphite on paper