Waking up early in the morning to work in the studio reminds me of visiting my Grandparent’s humble home when I was a small child. They lived in Rancho Tehama, California on a hillside surrounded by trees, chickens, and my grandmother’s medicinal plants. My Dad was always the first to wake before dawn. As I lay on a makeshift bed in the living room, warm under my grandmother’s handmade quilt, the crisp, cool air would hug my nose while Dad restocked the fire. The floor creaked as he danced around the wood-burning stove placing logs inside the iron door and stirring the red burning coals. I loved those mornings.
As someone who identifies as an introvert, my mornings are essential to my well-being. It is the time of day when my mind is fresh and free from any daily distractions each day brings. At times I wake before my alarm with images of paintings in my mind and I have to rise in order to free them. I take in shapes, lines, and colors around me while I prepare coffee and peer through the kitchen window at the dark mountains, simultaneously contemplating the weather. As summer fades away and fall begins the studio has begun to chill. I make sure to wrap myself in layers to stay warm, yet comfortable enough to paint in and quietly head into the studio tip-toeing throughout the house. I am never quite ready for the sun to peek over the horizon nor the stillness to dissipate.
This morning the studio was filled with cups of paint and brushes that sit on the floor. Pieces of raw canvas cover the ground from the previous night and others are pinned to the studio wall. Sheets of blank paper rest beside them ready for their next marks. I sway around each piece studying it, questioning if they are “working” or not. I analyze each brushstroke, pour, color, and layer waiting for the next mark to come to me.
My work has always had a quality of control and pause. In the end, it’s often not up to me what’s next to come. I appreciate the creative force that is always beside me while I wait and swim in curiosity.
“Creativity takes courage.” Henri Matisse
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