On New Year’s Day I was laying on the floor looking over my book of Helen Frankenthaler’s work (purchased from Monograph Bookwerks here in Portland) when our new kitty joined me to see what I was looking at. I proceeded to show some of my favorites to him, and we both quite enjoyed her piece “Mauve District.”
Later that day, I made my way out to the studio to paint. I chose to begin a new canvas, for the new year. I know lots of folks who fear the Big Blank Canvas, but for me oftentimes a heavily worked-on canvas can instill greater fear—or perhaps better expressed as a deeper self-doubt. Approaching the blank canvas, I blocked off some shapes in honor of Helen and Mauve District.
I had my dance with the canvas and retired for the next number to enjoy some tea as I worked to restrain myself from adding more to the canvas. Like Mauve District, my canvas at that point displayed some lovely amount of restraint. But I find myself personally less and less interested in the idea of restraint for my life—I want abundance, fullness not just for me but for everything, every sort of creature, every person. I find myself wanting to return to the dance floor as many times as I can.
So I brought it back out a few days later. Continued to add to it, to write all my many-faceted secrets on it, to listen to what it might want next. In between sessions, I’d leave it hanging in my studio. Watching and waiting. I’d return to it again and again.
Eventually, like most canvases, it reaches a point where a presence emerges or the piece becomes precious in a rather robust way, precious as in a meaningful statement of value. Here is where the music stops for our dance. This is often the point when I consider a canvas “done.”
For that new year’s canvas, that was when Annie Peanut emerged.