Painting from the Source
Although I originally went to Art School; in fact the famous Maidstone College which produced a number of Subud® members in the late 60s, I quickly dropped the idea of painting as a form of expression and focussed on drama based “events” film and street theatre. You could do that in those days. It was a very liberating environment in which art was whatever you wanted it to be.
I then moved right away from visual arts although I still loved drawing and designing my own publicity.
Then I began really seeing lots of colour in my latihans; bright clashing, primary colours and lots of paint. I met a woman called Anna who did workshops in something called “Painting from the Soul” which I thought a rather pretentious title, but I liked her so I went along. Faced with a huge blank imperial sized sheet of paper and an abundant choice of primary coloured poster paints and invited to paint whatever came… I froze! All the little voices telling me I was crap and couldn’t draw or paint were there at full throttle. So, Anna invited me to paint with my non-dominant hand so that I couldn’t “control”. She then asked me to paint a triangle, then a square, then a tree, then a house. By now I had run out of space and started to panic. Then something said, well just paint the bloody house on top of the bloody tree… it doesn’t matter. Something was just instantly released and I went beserk, splashing paint around like a child, which of course is exactly what the work is about. “Paint as though you are going to burn it!” said Anna… so I did.
This is a method devised by a woman called Aviva Gold. It’s really all about “process” as you paint freely and intuitively. This is not always pleasant. You can become extremely stuck. You make a mess. You hate yourself for making a mess. Your whole life is a mess! But you can’t stop there. You have to paint through it, work through exactly as you do in life. You can’t just tear it up and start again and I realised that this is what I’ve tried to do all my life. If it’s uncomfortable, leave and start again somewhere else. But of course, it doesn’t work because you just take all your crap right along with you. Working in this way has not only unleashed a form of creativity I never really knew I had, it has also really helped me see so much about my life and how I live it!
But as you work and work on the same painting, something amazing happens and shapes, images, symbols, layers of colour merge and blend until something comes at you through the paint. Something which insists on being seen and heard! The results are often quite powerful. The process of creating is always quite powerful. I photographed the paintings and had them made into prints and to my utter amazement, people bought them! The paintings which come through this way of working are strange, many-layered and full of symbolism, something I would never be able to achieve in a conscious or pre-determined way and this links in beautifully with the way I write songs. I can never say “I’m going to write about this or that”. The songs, like the paintings, are always a surprise and I love this element of surprise, of using so called mistakes to create something new and fresh.
Sometimes I have to add on more paper or cut bits out or tear the paper or whatever… hence the prints; but I’m now looking at framing the work exactly as it is, tears, stuck on bits, warts and all; encouraged by Athina Davies who says “It is what it is. It’s exactly the imperfections which make it alive.”
I will probably still struggle with the thoughts about not being a “proper painter” but then I’m not a proper musician either and that hasn’t stopped me!
An Interview with Adrienne (video courtesy of SICA International)
The following are extracts from Aviva Gold’s website:
“Every human being is an artist. As adults we can recreate the boundless joy of unself-conscious art by setting aside intellectual critique and self-doubt and reconnect with ‘the Source.’ the spiritual center others may call instinct or soul.”
Aviva Gold’s book is called “Painting From The Source”.
Refer to an article republished from Aviva Gold’s website on “Source Art in the World” and a poem by George Herrick “What If“.