Are you your job, whether it's inside or outside the home? Are you your clothes and the styles you wear? Are you the music you listen to? I read recently that it's a good idea to Focus on the Cut, referring to style, whether it's any of the above activities, your hair, your photographs, or your view of the world. What do you cut and what do you leave in?
When I look at a landscape I want to paint it takes hours, days, and sometimes months or years before I can see the cut – what it is that I want to be in focus, in high contrast. I can complicate a scene I have painted many times. Reduce it down. Keep it simple. Take out what isn’t important. Focus on the vision that I first saw.
LIVE OUTSIDE THE LINES
Take chances. Take risks. I can still follow the rule of simplicity in my life and relationships. When I am successful at remembering my vision, I am able to follow that vision first and foremost. When I focus on my vision, everything works with each other thing. I can see each thing in its proper perspective. My vision is not the same as someone else’s and it's not always in focus, but it's there, underlying everything else, like a box spring under our mattress. I don't think about it much, but if it weren't there, I certainly would notice!
SLOW DOWN
Being true to my vision, my cut, and the frame of my life, sounds simple but because it is simple it is difficult. The simplest paintings are the most difficult to execute. I drew this living room chair when I was laid up with a bad knee. I had to slow my life way down which is why I had the patience to make this drawing. I haven't painted it yet. Perhaps it is done already.
KNOW WHEN TO STOP
How do you frame your vision? How do you know when you have spent enough money, enough time, or enough energy to look back and say, "I have fulfilled MY vision and I am happy and content."
I'll never be like the lady in the photograph and that's okay. That's not my vision.
Love this! Wise words, and timely ones for me, too.