wet

When I enter my studio in the morning I walk straight to the canvas and check if the paint is still wet from yesterday.  This tells me much about what to expect for the afternoon.  It's wet which means it'll be wet-on-wet, which I prefer and dread.  And I remind myself that painting isn't much if it isn't stupid messy. 

Paintings I've decided are finished dry slowly in the corner, huddled beneath a tarp from flying paint.  Paint does reach my targeted canvas and and some does stay there.  The rest finds my clothing, this keyboard, or my scalp or face.  My attention is over here, on the work at hand, how its wet shapes shift and its edges defy me.  I scream while I work as colors blend on their own with other wet colors.  The picture does eventually end, I declare, but it is like a happy uncertainty.

And because I need a snack, oil paint is now in my kitchen. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I experience a shift when I paint.  (This blog, if you haven't noticed, is mostly about this shift.)  Like jumping from padded dryness into muddy water, drinking gin and soda without having dined all afternoon, caffeinating in Hungarian with just about anybody who can speak Hungarian.  I could go on and on.  Upon finishing my taxes today I immediately reached for eye drops.  I've never found spreadsheets to be a wet experience.  I'm taking the following week off, not painting, and will be in Santa Fe with my family.  I hope to find wetness on the slopes as well as in a gallery or two.